


take my hand, take my whole life too (for i can't help falling in love with you)

by LadyAlice101



Series: you bleed just to know you're alive (post tlj collection) [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Exploration of Emotions, F/M, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Post TLJ, Romance, Smut, That's Not How The Force Works, and certainly not Rey and Ben, at least I think it's not, i have little to no knowledge of star wars canon, i used to ship this casually now i'm writing fic, not me, so i probably over compensated with my research, who really knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:13:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAlice101/pseuds/LadyAlice101
Summary: Most people in galaxy will not be able to forgive him, and it isn’t Rey’s place to say that they should, or that he should try to win it.He could live a thousand more life times and not earn the forgiveness of the galaxy.But in this lifetime, he has earned hers.//OR:The bond is only getting stronger. Rey and Ben are too in love to resist it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I've been working on this beast for weeks. 
> 
> My first foray into writing Reylo. Definitely not the last. I already have plans for a sequel to this ha. 
> 
> I’ve briefly addressed the ‘What will Kylo Ren do now?’ question because I think it will be his entire arc in episode ix. However, big moral angst like that is not really my forte, so I will leave non-happy endings in which Kylo has to properly face his crimes to better writers than I. 
> 
> Unbeta'd.
> 
> Enjoy!

_the universe whispers in my ear_

_“you deserve better than this bloodstained broken soul”_

_and I can only think about how wrong the stars are_

_for my heart would have warned me to run_

_but instead it saw the good person burrowed inside the bruises_

_instead it saw the same shadows that drift over my skin_

_and it dug itself, bloody and barely beating,_

_to replace the empty space in his chest_

_the very first time he spoke my name like it was the start of his salvation_

_so tell me, constellations, I see the good in him_

_and if the universe thinks me so good_

_what does that say about just how brightly he burns_

_so when his hands touch me with a gentleness he doesn’t grant himself_

_when he looks at me with his knuckles red and raw_

_I know that violence doesn’t equal damned_

_and the universe whispers “darling, you can’t save him”_

_oh, the fates tangle their threads but this time they are so mistaken_

_and I can only bring myself to swear “watch me do it anyway”_

[\- he saved me first, you know by Abby S](https://fireandsteelofangels.tumblr.com/post/167458412807/the-universe-whispers-in-my-ear-you-deserve%20) 

 

Rey cannot believe this.

Cannot _kriffing_ believe this.

“The bond’s supposed to be gone,” is the first thing she says to him, surprise making her back straighten and her speak aloud even though anyone could be around.

He’s not facing her, and he doesn’t turn around to answer her, but anger ripples in his voice. “And why would you think that?”

But she can feel his shock, too, through the bond, and his attempt to sneer and scoff and make her feel stupid makes anger flare through her.

So she turns away from him and goes back to what she was doing, though her movements are stilted from anger. She peers through the plate of duralloy that she had taken out to look into the sublight drives, and, with her head safely tucked away from his view in case he were to decide to turn around, she closes her eyes.

She hates the emotion he brings out in her. Rey knows that she should be better than this; she’s supposed to be in better control of herself. So she takes a deep breath, and pulls herself out from the safety of the engine.

First Rey makes sure nobody is around, then she uses the Force to slam the door to the engineering bay closed.

The noise makes him turn to face her.

He looks terrible, like he’s not slept in days. Probably hasn’t, because he did murder his Supreme Leader only two days ago. Rey can imagine there’s some kind of power vacuum going on in the First Order.

She doesn’t feel sympathetic in the least.

“So,” Rey says, crossing her arms, “seems as though Snoke didn’t set up this connection, because he’s dead now and here you are.”

Ben’s face twitches, but she would probably think it anger if it weren’t for the bond; and through the bond she can feel only frustration, though not with her, she knows.

Well – not _just_ with her. He’s frustrated at the bond, at Snoke for lying (and therefore with himself for believing Snoke), and at the fact that he will never be able to outrun his mistakes.

Rey is of the firm belief that he should stop trying to outrun them, and instead confront them.

“Unless he did set it up and now it’s too strong to die with him,” he says stiffly.

Ben is being short with her, and she with him, but it is nothing compared to the inconsolable _fury_ that she had felt from him the moment he regained consciousness on the _Supremacy_ to well into the night following the battle on Crait. She figures he’s probably too tired at this point to maintain such anger.

Rey sighs in annoyance. “Look, Ben –“

He scowls at her. “Kylo.”

She ignores him. “- Ben, I can’t deal with this right now.”

He scoffs. “Like I can? You’ve no _idea_ of what difficulty I’m enduring because _you_ -.”

Rey bites her lip so hard to keep from screaming that the skin breaks.

But she can’t keep it down, no matter how hard she tries to centre herself.

“You – you!” She throws the hydrospanner she has in her hand at him, and he must have forgotten that they’re not actually together because he ducks to dodge it.

“I didn’t kill Snoke!” she shouts. “Don’t believe your own kriffing lie, _Kylo!_ And difficultly – it must be so _hard_ to be Supreme Leader of the galaxy, killing innocents wherever you go and subjugating those that you don’t murder. You expect me to feel badly for you? You – the people we just lost! We can fit –.”

She stops, breathing heavily. She’d been about to scream that they could fit what was left of the Resistance on the _Falcon._ Not intel the enemy needed.

The fear of accidently divulging Resistance information had been one of the reasons she was initially so terrified of the bond.

“Go on,” he says, in that tone that belies just how curious he really is, “you were about to tell me something interesting.”

But she bites her tongue, and so Ben moves to look around her surroundings.

“Still on that piece of junk, then?” he asks casually, and the knowing look in his eye makes her heart stop, all anger draining and being replaced with fear.

“You can see my surroundings?” she asks carefully, the tone curated to not give away how scared she actually feels.

Ben smiles wickedly. “No. But I don’t have to.”

He tilts his head towards her mockingly, the smirk on his face.

Rey just wants this to be over. She can’t handle these mind games any longer. The Force seems to understand this, because just as quickly as he appeared, he’s gone, and she’s standing alone in the engineering bay of the ship of the father he murdered, and she can’t help but still wish that he had just come with her two days ago.

 

* * *

 

People take sleep whenever they can, wherever they can, but they have a rotation of who gets to sleep in the crew quarters and when. Resistance numbers are down to a depressing forty-two, but there are only six bunks on the _Falcon._

Considering most of them never had more than a few hours sleep anyway, they decided that instead of allocating each person eight hours every three day cycles, they would get four hours every one and a half day cycles.

It messes with everyone’s sleep patterns, because they all sleep at different times, but they’re in hyperspace anyway, so it doesn’t mess with their functioning capacity. Rey usually snags a solid four hours sleep in between her times in the bunk, because she’s found a good hiding place in the engineering bay. She times it so that she’s completed her list of tasks, and when no one is looking for her to complete more.

Still, she knows from her years scavenging she can’t consistently function on eight hours of sleep over a forty-eight hour period, so she also naps for as long as possible when she can.

She’s in the midst of one such a nap when Ben shows up for the second time after Crait.

The pressure in her ears jolts her awake, but she’s only taking a short nap and so there are several other people around her, either napping as well or completing tasks quietly.

“Rey?” A voice next to her asks, but it isn’t Ben.

Rey takes her eyes from Ben to smile at Finn. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Who are you talking to?” Ben asks.

Rey knows her expression must tighten, because Finn looks more worried than a second ago.

“I’m just going to go outside for a moment. I’ll be back shortly,” she tells Finn, smiling in a way she hopes is reassuring. Finn looks unconvinced, but nods and lies back down.

It’s difficult to find somewhere that there aren’t people, so Rey heads back into the engineering bay. Even there, there are two other people, so Rey has to find a secluded corner by the hyperdrive to talk to him.

Ben’s sitting in a chair that’s come into existence with him, his fingers templed under his chin.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“Hyperspace,” she tells him, speaking quietly in case someone were to come closer. “You?”

“The _Finalizer_.”

Rey frowns in distaste. “I hate that ship.”

Ben hesitates, then admits, “So do I.”

Rey wonders what would cause him to say something like that. From her understanding it’s his ship, the place from which he now runs the galaxy. Admitting that he hates it feels like the piece of personal information that she’s been wanting from him since this whole thing started. It feels like a confirmation, of sorts, that she’d been right about him.

But then Ben clears his throat, and attempts to change the conversation. “Were you asleep?”

Rey purses her lips. “Yes.”

“What system’s day cycle are you operating on? This seems like an odd time to be asleep.”

“We’re in hyperspace, we’re not working with a traditional cycle. Besides, I was just taking a nap, I wasn’t properly sleeping.”

He tilts his head. “You would be able to sleep whenever and wherever you liked if you joined me,” he says, in that calm tone that suggests it’s the most obvious thing in that world but that he’s trying hard to suppress his emotion.

Through the bond, she can feel exactly what he’s feeling anyway. He’s hurt that she rejected him on the _Supremacy_ , but still desires that she join him, and angry with himself for not being strong enough to stop wanting her with him.

Before Rey can analyze his emotion any further, he shuts her out, a wall in his mind making it impossible to feel him anymore.

His jaw is clenched, and Rey doesn’t need the bond to know that Ben is angry with her.

“Keep _out_ of my head.”

“Stop trying to recruit me,” she snaps back. “I will _never_ join the First Order.”

Ben stands up and looks at her curiously, his head tilting as if he’s making a striking observation of her. Slowly, he walks up to her, until he stands just in front of her, and Rey can’t help but feel like she’s just prey being sized up by a predator.

“But you would join _me_ ,” he says quietly, and its not a question but neither is it a statement.

Rey almost doesn’t notice that he slips further into her mind, he does it so gracefully, but it feels slightly like there’s more pressure in her mind, like she’s being exposed, and her sensing him is more instinctual that it is that she can actually feel him.

Rey struggles to close her mental shields, to push him out like he did her, because she’s untrained. She spent two weeks with Luke on Ahch-To, and only a week before that had she realized she was even Force sensitive. Ben’s been training for years to master the Force, and while she matches him in raw strength, she cannot compete with his ability to bend the Force exactly to his will. She just doesn’t have a good enough understanding.

She perseveres though, and manages to push him out, but it’s messy and leaves her with a pounding headache.

“I would join you,” he says, stepping closer to her. He speaks faster and faster, excited by the idea. Rey’s head spins with what he’s telling her, made worse by her headache. “I would leave for you but not – not for the Resistance. For _you_. We could go someplace together, just you and I. I could train you in the ways of the Force and we could leave all of this behind us. Leave our loneliness behind us. We would be together.”

_Together._

It rings in her mind, makes her blood feel fiery, makes her heart beat faster.

_Together._

All she’s ever wanted is someone to call home.

Ben steps closer to her again. Rey frowns up at him in confusion, and can’t help but feel raw and exposed to him, like the small time he spent in her head has bared to him every last secret she holds deep in heart. She doesn’t know how to handle this, handle him, and it makes her feel naïve and childlike.

Slowly, Ben pulls his gloves from his hands, pinching the tip of each finger. With his hands bare, he reaches out, slowly, like approaching a wounded animal.

It gives her time to move, but Rey finds she can’t think straight with him so close. Her heart beats to the sound of her desires; _closer. Closer._

_Closer._

So she doesn’t move. She lets him do what it is that he wants to do.

His fingertips brush over her cheekbone, and they both stop breathing with the contact. She can feel his warmth, but there are sparks of something else. It’s like . . . it’s like this is exactly what the Force wants. The bond _hums_ in pleasure, a deep, visceral pleasure that she feels from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

His fingers glide over her face, and along her jaw. He pauses with his four fingers under her chin, and his eyes slip down from her eyes to her mouth. Rey doesn’t move as he slides his thumb up to touch against her lips. He pulls them apart, the skin of his calloused thumb rough against her chapped lip.

Leisurely, experimentally, he presses against the split in her lips from yesterday, when she had bit down so hard in her anger at him that she’d broken the skin. She can’t help but gasp at the pain that shoots from the pressure, and his thumb moves with the inertia and is pulled between her teeth.

It’s about the most erotic thing she’s ever experienced, and that’s before he steps closer and sweeps his other hand into her hair, pressing their bodies entirely together and tilting her head up to meet his gaze.

“Rey,” he whispers, and she would not be aware of the whimper that leaves her if it weren’t for the change in his own expression. “Come with me.”

And just like that, it’s like a bucket of cold water has been poured over her. She gathers the strength to push against his chest.

The hurt flares so strongly in him that she feels it in her chest as if it were her own emotion. It breaks her heart to bring out such negative emotion in him, but Rey can’t believe that he’d put her in this position yet again.

“No.”

For the rest of the day, all she feels from the bond is a white-hot anger that matches what she felt from him on Crait.

 

* * *

 

 

Rey spends the next next three days being terrified that he will show up to her again. She can’t face him, doesn’t have the strength to be emotionally wrought again, especially running on as little sleep as she is.

The main goal of the Resistance at the moment is to find another base, somewhere safe outside of First Order influence but with enough resources that they have the time and space to rebuild numbers.

Rey isn’t much help in that department, because until only a standard month ago she had never left Jakku, never had any reason to have working knowledge of the galaxy. She can barely picture in her mind the division of the Inner, Middle and Outer Rims, let alone how what planet that she’s never heard of fits into whatever system that she never thought she’d get a chance to visit.

But she does know that they’re currently flying dangerously close to leaving Wild Space and entering the Unknown Regions. They’ll keep close to the Ssi-ruuk Star Cluster, because getting any closer to the Ahch-To region will mean getting closer to the main disk of the galaxy and therefore closer to Coruscant, and the Resistance has good intel that the First Order is reestablishing it as the centre of the galaxy.

Rey’s flown in the Unknown Regions before, when she went to Starkiller, and when she travelled from D’Qar to Ahch-To. But it’s dangerous flying, because there are no hyperspace routes, and as such they’re relying too heavily on the sublight engines over the hyperdrive. Which usually would be fine, but the _Falcon’s_ engine has already been modified extensively, and even Rey knows that the SRB42 engines used by the _Falcon_ are unreliable once they’ve been tinkered with.

Add that to the fact they were heavily damaged on Crait, and Rey hasn’t slept more than her allocated hours in a cot in three days. She works on the engines every moment that she’s awake, and she hasn’t eaten anything more than a portion ration since they started favoring the sublights.

The tiredness is making her emotions unpredictable, and she’s tense from the fear of having to see Ben again.

So when he does show up, she bursts into tears immediately.

“Go away,” she tells him through her tears, clenching the hydrospanner in her fist tightly.

The anger that burned so brightly only a few seconds ago fizzles out into confusion as he takes her in.

“Rey, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

His compassion should make her feel better, but she only cries more.

“Go away,” she sniffles again, staring into the most damaged part of the engine, trying to hide from him.

She can tell from the bond that he’s struggling to understand what’s going on. He’s angry, still, and is trying to overcome it so he can help her. He’s not used to being selfless in such a way, and it makes him feel frustrated that it isn’t something he can just _do._

“Rey.” Maybe he doesn’t exactly achieve _compassion,_ but it’s just desperate enough that she turns to him. “Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“You – you! I don’t want to talk to you! You make me feel too much.”

His face scrunches up in bewilderment. “Too – much . . . what?”

She didn’t want to have this conversation. For three days she’d been practicing in her mind what she was going to say to him when he inevitably appeared, and it was much more calm and collected.

_‘Ben, I can’t talk to you right now. Yes, I know I hurt you, but you hurt me, too. Oh? You’re sorry? You want to come home? I’ll get a cot prepared for your arrival.’_

Thinking back on it, this was always the more likely scenario.

And now that she’s started talking, she can’t stop. It’s like every emotion that’s she’s held at arms length about him, everything she didn’t want to admit to herself that she felt, was bubbling up and being exposed to him just because she hadn’t slept.

It makes Rey feel weak compared to him.

“Just, just too much! You make me feel like you care about me, like maybe we’re going to alleviate each other’s loneliness and I think to myself, _‘maybe I could go with him. Maybe Ben Solo isn’t bad’._ But then every time I – I – I, I try to help you, you just go back to being Kylo Ren and I can’t stand it any longer! It’s been five days Ben and already you’re too much. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Before he can say anything or Rey can word vomit any more closely held secrets, he disappears as quickly as he came and Rey is left sobbing in the engineering bay by herself like a fool.

 

* * *

 

Kylo feels off balance for the rest of the day.

He keeps his awkwardness at bay, because the last thing he needs is Rey sensing it down the bond and it making her emotions even more haywire.

Kylo’s been feeling her progressively getting more and more upset over the past three cycles, and it’s only been adding to his own anger.

When he’d offered her the galaxy while they were on board the _Supremacy_ , he’d expected her take his offer, because wouldn’t anyone want that? Wouldn’t anyone say yes to the opportunity of ruling the galaxy by the side of their equal?

 _He_ wants it more than anything.

But her saying no made him feel worthless, no matter that he recognizes that maybe that’s irrational. He thought he’d found the one person in the galaxy who could understand him, the person who was going to stick with him through thick and thin and then she’d just said _no_ as if he meant nothing to her.

He’d always had a tendency to throw tantrums, but he hadn’t felt such all-consuming rage in years before that moment.

And then . . . she’d rejected him a second time. He’s been so _sure_ she would say yes the second time, because it was just them. Just the two of them, taking on the galaxy together. The idea appeals to him more than he thought it could, because he’d always been so loyal to the First Order.

But now it’s like he’s loyal to the Order, _and_ Rey. And already he’s proved to himself and her that he would pick her over the Order. It scares him, frankly, and her not taking his offer, knowing his fear of rejection, and just turning him down – well. He’s not surprised with himself for getting angry.

He’d even thought it justified until she’d appeared and just started crying. Thinking over the conversation she’d had with him earlier that day, he feels . . . disappointed in himself. It’s an emotion he doesn’t know how to handle, because he hadn’t needed to try and do right by someone in years.

Snoke had been different. He obeyed Snoke for fear of punishment, and not having a better option. Kylo even believed the Order’s cause to be right and just. But this with Rey, his need for her approval, is different.

It’s like he wants to be better for her, but that’s ridiculous because he’s happy where he is.

(But that’s a lie because if he were happy he wouldn’t have killed Snoke, he wouldn’t want her, and he wouldn’t feel the need to make her happy).

His emotions are so conflicted, because he wants nothing more than to see her, but he doesn’t understand what he’s feeling, and he can’t add her own distress on top of that. The First Order is in shambles, he needs to focus on his life’s work.

But when he goes to sleep that night, his last thoughts are of her lips.

 

* * *

 

Ben appears to her again late the next day. She’s feeling a bit more balanced today, because Finn had walked in on her sobbing and working on the sublights yesterday and was so distressed at seeing her upset he’d taken her straight to Leia.

Despite Rey constantly telling them both she was fine, crying the whole time she was trying to convince them was probably not the best way to get them to let her go back to work.

So they’d allocated her a couple more hours in a cot, and while Rey felt _horrible_ to take them from someone else, she couldn’t deny that today she felt much better.

Kriffing embarrassed, of course, because of what she’d admitted to Ben as well as crying so much in front of a woman she admired, but better.

Rey knows that he’ll still be able to sense her emotions, but she’s preparing herself to pretend that yesterday didn’t happen.

Rey feels the familiar pressure in the base of her skull, the pop of her ears, and the disappearance of any outside noises just as she’s finishing up for the day. She ignores him for a moment, gathers her courage, and tries desperately not to blush. Then she pulls herself from the engine and picks up a rag to rub the grease from her hands.

“Hello, Ben,” she says politely as she rubs the rag up her arms.

His nose twitches. “You smell terrible.”

Rey bristles, and rubs harder, but doesn’t say anything. She glares at him as she throws the rag down.

“You – can’t you just be civil for once?” she snaps at him, unable to keep quiet any longer. He infuriates her.

He shifts from foot to foot, as if he’s embarrassed. She tries to pry into his mind, to investigate if that’s true, but she meets only a solid wall. Rey can’t help but be quietly impressed at how impenetrable they are, even for her, and wishes she could construct shields as strong as that for herself. She’d been working on it for the past couple days, trying to build one up, brick by brick, but it’s harder than she thought it’d be.

“How are you today, Rey?” he asks her, his body betraying how uncomfortable he is. “I hope you got some sleep?”

His attempt at civility is laughable (and vaguely adorable, honestly).

He scowls at her. “Don’t laugh at me,” he snaps through her giggles. “If I have to be civil, you do too. Stop laughing!”

She presses her lips together to stop laughing. Being with him is addictive; she feels everything so intensely. She goes through emotion quickly when she’s with him, but it just burns so _brightly._ On Jakku, everything was muted. Life passed slowly, dully, the tally on the walls of her AT-AT the only indication that days were passing by.

Even with the Resistance, the most she feels is with Finn. He makes her laugh, he makes her happy, and it’s easy. It’s simple.

But Ben makes her feel _alive._

And as much as she wishes she could just go with simple, she’s past that time in her life. She won’t settle for anything less than soul-consuming.

Ben most certainly is that.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says. “Um. I did get some sleep.”

He nods awkwardly, and shifts from foot to foot.

She considers asking about him, but ultimately decides getting more information on how he sleeps is a bad idea. She’s doesn’t need to be able to picture his half naked body in a bed.

Too late.

“So,” Rey says loudly. “How is . . .”

She trails off as she realizes she knows little to nothing about him outside of his family history and his involvement with the First Order.

He looks at her expectantly, but Rey doesn’t know what to ask, and she flounders with how to keep conversation going. She’s never made friends before. The closest thing was Finn, and she didn’t exactly befriend him. They got stuck together.

He must sense that she’s struggling, because he rocks back on his feet and looks around.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time engineering,” he says.

Rey almost says yes, almost says, ‘ _Yeah, the sublights were damaged on Crait,’_ but then she remembers whose fault that was, and why she has to work on them so much, and realizes that its all information that can be extrapolated to tell him where she is.

He frowns. “I wasn’t trying to - . . .” He sighs in frustration.

“Let’s find some neutral topics,” Rey suggests. “Do you have any hobbies?”

“Hobbies?” It sounds like he’s testing the word on his tongue, like he’s never considered it a possibility.

“Things you do in . . . your spare time?” Rey was isolated on Jakku, with no connection to the wider galaxy except through what she learned from passing traders, and even she had a hobby.

He scoffs. “Spare time?”

She shrugs awkwardly. “You don’t make time?”

“No.” It’s resounding. “What are yours?”

“You don’t think I learnt mechanics from a book, do you?”

He says silent for a long moment. “That seems less like a hobby and more like a necessity,” he says finally.

He’s probably right.

“I used to draw,” Rey tells him. “Only when I had charcoal, which wasn’t often. Not a lot to burn on Jakku.”

Again, Ben thinks on the new information.

“When I was at the Jedi academy,” Ben offers slowly, “I practiced calligraphy.”

Rey isn’t sure what that is, but it sounds a bit pretentious.

He follows her train of thought and barks out a laugh. “Yes, it is pretentious. My . . .” He pauses, then changes his sentence. “General Organa thought it would be a good idea, when she thought I would become involved with public policy.”

Rey blinks in surprise at his reference to his mother. Before she can comment any further, though, the bond shuts off. He disappears.

Rey hums in pleasure, feeling like she’s left this round better off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems wildly preposterous, and if Kylo had been told it by anyone else, he wouldn’t believe it. The Force doesn’t work like that, he would have said. But clearly it does, clearly it likes to play cosmic-level jokes, because this relationship the Force is fostering is nothing less than galaxy destroying.

A dull pressure and a pop in his ears alerts Kylo to Rey’s appearance.

“Well, this is new,” she says dryly.

He picks up a shirt and pulls it on before he turns to face her. He assumes she’s being sarcastic, commenting on the fact that she’s appeared before him while he’s indecent yet again, but when he looks at her, he can immediately tell this connection is different.

If he didn’t know that it was impossible, he would genuinely believe that she was actually _here._

There’s no blurring around her form signifying a disturbance in the Force like there usually is. Nothing has come into existence with her even though she is lying down. It’s like she’s really, truly there in his bed.

It even feels different in his mind. More . . . solid.

“I can see your room,” Rey says lightly, as if she’s trying to keep her speech casual even though she knows how momentous that actually is. She moves her hands over his bed. “I can feel your sheets on my body.”

Kylo tries to hide how alarmed he is by that but he figures that if the bond is this strong, then she probably can tell anyway.

“How much can you see?” he asks cautiously.

She sits up and swings her legs over the side of his bed. “Your air cooling vents are just there.” She points them out. “Your door is there. Your ‘fresher is there. Your desk is just over here. Hiding any First Order secrets in that?”

She jumps up excitedly and rushes over to it, but Kylo is closer so he steps in her way.

“You _are_ ,” she says with wide eyes, leaning around him.

“That depends,” he replies, pushing against her shoulders and holding her at arms length. “You have any Resistance secrets on the _Falcon_?”

Rey hesitates, frowns, then backs away and goes back to sit on his bed.

“We have an understanding, then?” he clarifies.

“Yes,” she answers quietly, lying back down.

“The bond is getting strong,” he says a moment later. He wonders if it would be weird if he sat on the bed beside her.

She nods slowly, as if that’s the worst news she could have heard. “We should test the boundaries.”

He agrees. “How is this working? Have you been transported here? Are you in two places at once, or is it more like before, where you act in one place and it just projects here, too?”

Rey lifts the covers of his bed and gets comfortable in it. She moves around, lying on her back, then her side, then presses an indent in the pillow with her fist.

“I can’t be entirely sure,” she eventually responds, after she’s comfortable. She’s on her side, the sheets at her waist, one arm under the pillow and her head, the other lying by her face. “But I think it’s more like I’m in two places at once. I can feel my body on the _Falcon_ , and if I focus I can hear my surrounds there. But it isn’t moving as I move here, not talking when I talk here. I’m just lying in my cot.”

It seems wildly preposterous, and if Kylo had been told it by anyone else, he wouldn’t believe it. The Force doesn’t work like that, he would have said. But clearly it does, clearly it likes to play cosmic-level jokes, because this relationship the Force is fostering is nothing less than galaxy destroying.

Kylo decides he’s going to sit on the bed.

He feels a twinge of unease down the bond, but Rey moves back slightly to make room for to sit.

“I’m supposed to be sleeping,” Rey tells him a few minutes later. “If you keep me awake, it won’t be my fault that I cry uncontrollably again.”

He can’t help bark out a slight laugh. “I would prefer that you didn’t cry like that again,” he agrees.

“What, don’t how to deal with a crying woman, Solo?” she jokes. He tries really hard to ignore her using his real name. Calling him Ben is one thing, but using the name of the father he murdered is another. Kylo isn’t ready to face that demon tonight.

“Not something we were taught at the Jedi academy, I’m afraid,” he says wryly. It, like her own joke, has the potential to be explosive.

She laughs awkwardly, brushing over it like he did, and then they fall into an uncomfortable silence.

He clears his throat, attempting to alleviate the tension that’s settled between them.

“So,” he says, “you can see my chambers, you can sleep in my bed.”

(Kylo tries not to think about that one too much, for fear of picturing her naked – no, nope, there it is.)

“I wonder if you can eat my food, too.”

She sits up quickly, looking partly intrigued, partly like she hasn’t eaten today and that the idea is the best she’s ever heard.

“Yes,” she says, like she’s trying to hide how much she wants to try, “I wonder.”

“Do they still keep a supply of nerf steak on that ship?” Kylo asks, remembering the supply of frozen meat that seemed never ending when he was a kid.

“Yep,” Rey shudders. “Better than the rations I had on Jakku, but it’s very . . .”

“Tough. Chewy,” Kylo supplies. “I used to have to chew a single mouthful for minutes.”

Kylo can’t quite believe the amount of times he’s mentioned his past tonight, so instead he ponders on what to get her.

“And drink? A steady of supply of ardees, I assume.”

She nods.

“Never been very elegant, that ship,” he scoffs.

“I happen to like ardees,” Rey tells him, a level of affront in her tone that tells him she’s getting pissed at him.

He doesn’t care.

“That’s because you’ve never had anything good.”

While hunger isn’t an emotion, he feels her absolute desire for food from the bond, and so he stands from the bed and goes to the door. He hails a passing Stormtrooper, and tells him to bring two serves of the best dinner he can think of that they have aboard; rancor ribs.

The ‘trooper stumbles out an affirmative, then rushes away. Kylo shuts the door firmly, then turns to his cupboard where he has several bottles of wine stored. He pulls out the best he has, a bottle of the highly sought after Crème D'Infame, and two glasses.

Sitting at the desk would be easiest, but there’s only one chair and Rey looks very comfortable in the bed, so instead he flicks his wrist and all his papers fly into folders and then into the drawers. With a crook of his fingers, the table slides across the floor and stops in front of the bed.

Kylo pours the two glasses, then pushes one across to her.

“What’s this?” she asks cautiously.

“Wine.”

She eyes it warily. “It’s not poisoned, is it?”

He rolls his eyes upward. “Rey, at which point do you think I had time to poison wine I was going to drink? When I was rearranging the room or when I got it from the shelf?”

That seems good enough for her, because she takes a sip.

She moans around the lip of the glass, and, wow, Kylo did not need to know what she sounded like in his bed.

“That’s really good,” Rey says, then takes another sip, this one larger.

Rey wipes a drop of the red wine from her lip, and his eyes follow the movement involuntarily.

“Yes,” he agrees distractedly, still staring at her lips.

Nervousness flutters down the bond and settles in Kylo’s gut; he doesn’t know where hers begins and his ends.

“So, calligraphy,” Rey supplies clumsily. “What, um, is that?”

 

 

 

“I think someone is calling my name,” Rey says suddenly. “It must be time to wake up.”

Kylo is intrigued by that. He resolves to spend some hours looking over some texts on Force bonds.

“You used up my four hours,” she grumbles, tiredness and the wine making her speech slur slightly.

“Your four hours?”

“Mm,” she hums. “Four hours in two days on a cot. It’s only fair.”

She sighs deeply. He’s not entirely sure exactly what she’s saying, but he can figure out the gaps.

“And now I have to sleep in the engineering bay again, with no sleep in a cot. Because you used up my four hours.”

He turns over to face her, propping up on his elbow. After their meal, Rey had flopped back down on the bed and snuggled into the covers. The wine had loosened her inhibitions just enough to grab his hand and pull him to lie down too. (“Above the covers, though, Ben Solo,” she said seriously, booping his noise. “I know how boys think.”

He hadn’t been thinking that – much – before she brought it up.)

Kylo can’t help but reach out to her now, and run his fingers over her cheek just for a second.

“We’ll have to figure out how to get you back here tonight, then.”

He’s unsure what her reaction will be to his suggestion. He hadn’t meant it maliciously, almost just had her best interests at heart, but he knows that she’s wary of him. She should be.

He doesn’t want her to have a volatile reaction, but she just turns her face into the pillow and hums in agreement.

“Soft,” she agrees, as if that alone is worth sleeping on a First Order ship. He imagines she won’t think that when she has a cup of caf and shakes the worst of the tiredness and drunkenness off.

Then she rolls back over, and he feels apprehension down the bond.

“Ben?” she asks quietly, embarrassment colouring her face. “I, uh . . . how do you suppose I get back to the _Falcon?_ ”

It takes a self-control he didn’t know he had to not let his surprise show through. She probably feels it down the bond, because embarrassment that isn’t his own flares in him and her face only colours more; but he makes sure the surprise doesn’t show on his face.

He contemplates his answer before speaking.

“Well,” he says slowly, “for me, it’s like you and our bond have a special location in my mind. Right here.”

He reaches around her head and taps a finger against her base of her skull, right where it meets her neck. He feels a spark shoot down his finger and into his arm, strong, visceral, and the root of his own bond hums happily in his head.

She whimpers with pleasure and leans her head back into his hand. Kylo unfurls his fist and lets her rest her neck in the cup of his hand, trying not to breathe too harshly. He lets his thumb brush against her neck, a soothing notion that he can’t make himself stop even when he starts speaking again.

“When I look into the bond,” he whispers, and it sounds ragged even to himself, “it’s as if I can see a physical line, from me to you.”

He can tell she’s having trouble listening to him over the feel of his skin on hers. If it makes him feel slightly smug, well, he thinks that’s natural.

“Try and go into it, see what’s there. It might lead you back to your body.”

But before she can even close her eyes, he feels a familiar pop in his ears and then she’s gone.

He’s left laying alone, his hand still cupped as if holding her, and the bed warm beside him.

Kylo feels the Force around him hum as if in delight, as if it thinks this whole thing is funny.

He groans as he lets himself fall to the bed, staring at the place Rey was lying only a second before.

_Fuck._

* * *

 

The Resistance finds a base to go to, a tiny planetoid outside of main maps and so obscure it doesn’t have a name, just its numerical designation. That doesn’t bother Rey particularly, because it’s not like she’d know it anyway.

All Rey knows is that it’s vaguely near Hoth, that the Rebel alliance used it as a base after they abandoned Echo base, and that it’s day cycles last to the equivalent of other planets’ weeks.

Rey isn’t looking forward to calling 5251977 her home, but at this point, if it has more than one functioning ‘fresher, then it’s better than the _Falcon._

It doesn’t take them long to get from the Ssi-ruuk Star Cluster to 5251977. They spend three day cycles navigating the Unknown Regions, then another two getting through Wild Space, but once they reach the Outer Rim they go straight to the hyperspace route Lipsec Run. From there they spend only four more hours on the _Falcon,_ and then they’re landing on 5251977.

Rey has no idea at what point in the local day cycle they’re in, and it could take weeks for the sun to set and for them to figure out the time pattern.

Still, Rey is the first one off the _Falcon,_ and the first into the base. Leia had told them before they’d landed that 5251977 had nothing on it besides this base; it had a breathable atmosphere, but little else. The sunlight was too strong during its day and gone for too long during its night to sustain any vegetation, and as such there were no life forms.

The worst they would come across was booby traps laid by the Empire after the base had been abandoned, which still seemed pretty bad to Rey.

Leia had given Rey a pep talk on the _Falcon_ about harnessing her power in the Force, and between that and the careful questions Rey had been asking Ben over the past couple of days, she felt confident enough to head into the base and try and feel for any traps.

It didn’t take Rey long to realize that instead of laying traps, the Empire had just bombed the base. One half was entirely destroyed, but a lot of the base was built underground, which survived the worst of the damage.

The air is cold and dank underground, and Rey get less and less excited about the place the further in she goes.

“Home, sweet home,” Poe mutters behind her, and Rey definitely agrees with his sentiment. The place feels icy and unsympathetic.

But she also hasn’t slept properly since Crait, so who is she to complain?

There’s enough space to have a room to herself, and there’s several ‘freshers that having cold but running water (the water ran as red as the dirt at the surface when she first turned it on, and her heart sank, but with a big groan and a clank, the water cleared and ran flawless, and Rey wasted no time in undressing and getting in).

They’d unloaded as much of the supplies from the _Falcon_ as they could, and Rey uses one of the towels that had been on there to dry off. She wraps it around her body and leans down to pick up her discarded clothes. They’re filthy, still covered in salt from Crait, as well as dirt and sweat from their time in space, so Rey uses the bar of soap she’s found to rinse them as thoroughly as she can in the sink.

Rey doesn’t have a spare change of clothes, but she doesn’t really need them. These clothes will take several hours to dry in such a damp environment, but she needs as many hours of sleep as she can get, so she figures it will be plenty of time for them to dry.

_You can use the Force to dry them, you know_.

Ben’s voice in her head is unexpected and she looks around to try and find him.

_I’m not there with you_.

It takes but a second for this new development to throw Rey into a panic, and she throws up the strongest shield she can to stop him from figuring out where she is. She hadn’t meant to cut him out completely, but there’s only silence in her head now.

“Relax, Rey,” she tells herself, looking at her reflection in the mirror.

She takes a deep breath, then bundles her clothes in her arms and makes the trip back to her room. She opens the door to her new room and walks through the threshold, expecting to see the little cot she’d made up before she’d showered, her staff and the halves of Luke’s lightsaber on top of the sheets but nope.

She walks through her door and into Ben’s room.

He looks her up and down as she enters, leaning back in his chair.

Ben opens his mouth to speak, but seems to think better of it as he closes it again. Rey shifts from foot to foot.

“Um.”

Her eyes fly around the room, trying not to look at him directly while she’s so indecent. Her gaze lands on the bed, and there’s nothing she can do to stop the colour that creeps up her neck as she thinks about lying on his bed naked. She tries desperately to lock that image from her mind, but her eyes land on his desk, and she catches sight of his hands. They’re so big compared to hers, and it conjures up images of what they would feel like on her body; curled around her waist, sliding up her thigh, cupping her chin as he pulls her close.

_Kriff, kriff, he can probably hear you, you stupid girl!_

Rey shrinks against the door, feebly trying to block her mind.

Ben’s hand clenches on the desktop.

_Fuck._ He can hear her. Rey tries desperately to set up defenses in her mind, but it’s too late.

But he makes no move from the desk, doesn’t even make a dry comment, and instead points to the cupboard with his pen.

“There are –“ His voice breaks, and he has to clear his throat. “There are some clothes in there you can use.”

Rey feels slightly better that he seems to be just as affected by the images in her mind as she is.

Ben’s wardrobe is filled entirely with black clothes, and Rey can’t help but roll her eyes at it. She picks the biggest shirt he has in there and looks over her shoulder to see if he’s peeking. He’s staring resolutely at his desk

Still, she pulls it on quickly before she drops the towel. It’s pretty kriffing big on her, and she considers putting on a pair of his pants, too, but the shirt is long enough that she’s not particularly exposed, and it doesn’t seem cold enough to warrant that. Besides, with how much longer his legs are than hers, she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to walk with the excess material.

Rey’s wet clothes are piled on top of the towel on the floor.

“Hey, Ben?”

“Yes, Rey?” He doesn’t look up from his work.

“If I hang my clothes in your room do you think they’ll come back with me?”

His free hand flexes on the desktop again. Rey wonders why, briefly, but then for just a second see’s herself from his perspective; standing in the middle of his room, wearing nothing but his clothes, her hair damp and her legs lean. He wants to kneel before her, push his hands under the hem of his shirt, slowly exposing more and more of her. His desire for her burns brightly.

Rey decides to extend the same courtesy as he did her, and doesn’t mention that she knows what he’s thinking.

“It’s more likely they will than they won’t.”

Taking care not to bring too much more attention to herself – steadfastly ignoring the fact she has no desire to put pants on even though she knows what its doing to him – Rey hangs her clothes where she can.

“You’re off that godsforsaken ship, then?”

Rey doesn’t bother answering. He already knows.

“We should set some rules,” Rey says firmly, sitting down on his bed. “We’ve been okay so far, you’ve not come to me and I haven’t come to you outside this room. But eventually it’s going to happen.”

He ponders that for a moment, twirling his pen in his hand. Finally, he sits back and stares at her, as if he’s figured out something about her.

“I don’t care if you show up anywhere on the _Finalizer._ You will learn nothing of use to the Resistance.” He stands then, and stalks around the desk, still that look on his face as if he knows something she doesn’t. “But you, my beautiful Rey. You must trust me an awful lot to think that I won’t learn everything I can about the Resistance the first chance I get.”

“I don’t trust you at all!” she spits. She doesn’t really know how the conversation has spiraled so suddenly. Everything with him is always so delicate, one step away from breaking.

He smirks down at her, and Rey feels like she’s walked straight into a trap.

“Oh? Then why are you still there?”

Her heart stops.

“Do you want to see them fail?” he asks, stepping closer to her. One more step and she would have to open her legs to let him come closer. He does step forward. Rey does spread her knees. He looks down at her knowingly.

“No, I don’t want them to fail,” she breathes, her eyes on his mouth.

Slowly, he lifts his hands to rest them against her shoulders. He pushes her down and follows her body with his own. Rey feels the bed compress where he rests his knee between her thighs, and where he rests his elbow by her shoulder.

Using his other hand, he grabs her jaw and pushes her head away from him. A sharp inhale from her makes him smile against her neck, and then he opens his mouth and licks a line from her collarbone to her ear.

“So why are you staying, then?” he murmurs, his breath raising goosebumps behind her ear.

Rey can’t think straight enough to answer. Before she can catch her breath, however, he straddles her waist, a knee pressing into the mattress on either side of her waist, and both his hands wrapped around her throat.

Rey blinks through the fog of lust he’d built up in her.

“I could kill you right now,” he whispers harshly, pressing his thumb more firmly into her windpipe as if to prove his point.

“You won’t,” she rasps. Instinct makes her want to grab his wrists in defense, but she senses that this is a turning point for them. Instead, she clenches her fingers in the bed sheets to prevent herself from stopping him.

“But I could.” His brown creases as if confused by her actions. His grip loosens almost entirely.

“But you _won’t._ ”

This time it’s her turn to reach up to him. His hands fall away from her throat as she sits up to meet him.

“You do trust me,” he breathes.

Rey pushes against his shoulder, deciding that enough is enough. She’s in control of this situation now.

He obediently gets off her, and sits on the bed beside her. Rey throws a leg over him, her turn to straddle him.

“Ben,” she says sternly, swinging an arm around his neck, the other resting on his shoulder.

“Yes?”

She smirks at his submission.

“You won’t try to hurt me again, will you?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“And are you going to try and exploit our bond to find Resistance secrets?”

He groans, his head falling against her shoulder, the truth of his response rippling through the bond. “No.”

Rey rewards him by rolling her hips against his.

The groan he lets out at that is more strangled than the last, and it hitches at the end in something that sounds like a whimper. His hands are resting by his sides, so Rey grabs them and puts them on her hips. Her fingers lace through his, and she presses down, guiding him on how much pressure she likes.

He understands immediately, his fingers gripping her tightly, guiding her hips into another roll over his. This time a groan of her own matches his echoing through the room. One of his hands snakes around her waist, and the other moves under her thigh, squeezing tightly, then sliding up and under the hem of her – his – shirt.

He must have known, of course, that she hadn’t put any panties on under the shirt, but when his fingers meet no material a beautiful whimper leaves his lips and it leaves her smiling wickedly.

This moment feels inevitable. Ben’s touch sends Rey into a panting spiral, and she can think of nothing other than the warmth of his hands on her cunt.

She’s already so wet, she knows, can feel the slickness herself, but Ben doesn’t press a finger into her like Rey so desperately wants.

Instead, he uses a combination of his raw strength and the Force to stand and hoist her up on his shoulders. Her back slams against the far wall, and Rey does not even have a second to catch a breath before his mouth is on her and she’s crying out from the pure ecstasy of it all.

“Holy _fuck,_ ” she whines, using the edge of his wardrobe and the ceiling to brace herself.

Rey comes apart under his ministrations embarrassingly quickly, but Ben doesn’t stop. Instead, he lets his own arousal roll over her, pushing his desire down the bond to make her peak under his tongue a second, then a third time.

“Stop,” she eventually has to gasp, “please, stop.”

His lips drag up her body as he lets her drop down. Rey has to grip his shirt to stop from falling on her wobbly legs.

Ben’s smugness prickles down the bond, and Rey rolls her eyes at him. She wants to take control back immediately, but can hardly stand, let along walk him back. So they wait a few minutes, panting harshly, his arms caging her against the wall and her head pillowed again his chest, his heart beating rapidly under her ear.

When she gets her breath back and the worst of the weakness in her knees disappears, she smirks wickedly. She shoves against his chest, and he stumbles back. Rey follows his step, forcing him back until the back of his legs hit the edge of the bed, and he sits down heavily on the bed.

“Let me return the favour,” she says, in a coy tone that she hadn’t used in a long time, dropping to her knees –

\- and ending up back in her room on 5251977.

Rey blinks, startled to be back here. She’d almost entirely believed that she was on the _Finalizer_ with Ben.

She’s standing in the doorway to her room, right where she would have been when she was transported to Ben. It’s Ben’s shirt she’s wearing, her own clothes hanging around her room like they had been in his.

It’s dangerous, this game the Force is playing. The thought makes her walk further into her room, a pit growing in her gut.

A sharp tingle up her spine followed by deep satisfaction clues her into the fact that Ben has taken care of himself.

Rey uses her towel to wipe her wetness from her thighs, then flops down on the hard bed.

Not as comfortable as Ben’s, she can’t help but think.

The thought of his bed brings back thoughts of the conversation he’d forced her to have, about her priorities. She’s angry he thought that she should be scared enough of him to leave the Resistance. She is very sure that that isn’t necessary, and even if it was, Rey doesn’t know where she’d go instead.

All at once, it slams into her. A wave of clarity, an epiphany that makes her toes curl in pleasure at her devotion, and her stomach drop with a guilt she’ll never be able to shake.

Ben means more to her than bringing down the First Order does.

Panic claws up in her throat. It’s a beautifully terrible thing to learn about herself, that she would prefer to let their bond remain unchecked than do something about it.

Despite how exhausted she is, Rey sleeps terribly that night.

 

* * *

 

Rey spends a not so inconsiderable amount of time pondering over what will happen to Ben Solo. She knows that Ben can hear or at least sense her thoughts, because whenever she spends too long wondering how he could have possibly killed his father, or not done anything to stop the destruction of the Hosnian System, she feels a deep guilt settle in her bones that’s too twisted to attribute to herself.

The Resistance will fight and claw against the political might of the First Order until its dying breath, but Rey isn’t naïve enough to think that they will actually _win._ The Resistance is too small, the Order too big, and there’s too much support for an imperial restoration for the Resistance to win based on political campaigning.

No, it would take the Order splitting down the middle for the Resistance to come out triumphant; and Rey happens to have inside knowledge cluing her into the fact that that isn’t as outlandish a thought as is widely believed.

Those thoughts, too, make strong negative emotions come out in Ben. It makes him resist the Light further, because it makes him think that the only reason she desires for him to come to the Light is see the Resistance triumph.

Rey doesn’t know how to put into words that she wants to see Ben redeem himself, but not necessarily at the expense of the Order; that they can be mutually exclusive.

Rey has difficultly explaining it to herself, so she doesn’t know how to tell him. If she had a choice, she would take Ben and if the First Order happened to not fall, she wouldn’t care.

It brings up the same thoughts she’d had back when they first arrived on 5251977, that Ben means more to her than bringing down the Order does.

That’s usually about when she extracts herself from her thoughts, because it brings up uncomfortable questions about her loyalties and her goals.

_So what_ am _I still doing here? Why don’t I just leave with Ben, why don’t we run away together?_

Rey finds she doesn’t usually have an answer.

 

 

 

Rey decides the day after their first dalliance that she can’t let it happen again. It had been . . . electrifying, beautiful in a way she didn’t know sex could be. The experience only further reinforced the bond, and Rey found that the day after she was more in touch with Ben, his emotions and thoughts.

Still, Rey is convinced that theirs is the most complex relationship that has ever happened. They’re on opposite sides of the war, he’s done unforgivable things that every day Rey finds she has the ability to move past, but she can’t reconcile in her mind how they could ever make it work.

Most people in galaxy will not be able to forgive him, and it isn’t Rey’s place to say that they should, or that he should try to win it.

He could live a thousand more life times and not earn the forgiveness of the galaxy.

But in this lifetime, he has earned hers.

Both Rey and Ben find it difficult to settle into their new relationship, because it had felt like everything before had been leading up to the inevitable. Ben is confused, at first, when Rey tells him he isn’t allowed to kiss her, but it doesn’t take much to convince him of the logic; he must have had the same doubts.

Mutual desire flows through the bond unchecked, because while they don’t allow themselves to act on their emotions, they never agreed to hide from each other.

Rey has come to understand that the Force wildly disagrees with their stance. The Force always has impeccable timing; their bond cuts off before they say something they’ll regret, connects them when one has just wrapped a towel around themselves, covered and modest but exposed and wet. Neither Ben nor Rey have learnt how to either connect or disconnect according to their own will.

They connect mostly at night. They both prefer when Rey is taken to him, because his bed is bigger and softer than hers. Ben always groans when he appears beside her, grumbling about hard surfaces and scratchy sheets. They talk a lot, learn everything about each other, but they sleep a lot too. Rey knows that he doesn’t just disappear when she falls asleep, that he’s there most of the night, because the bed is usually still warm next to her when she wakes up.

That, and often she wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to the ‘fresher to get some water, and he always grumbles both when she leaves and when she disturbs the bed as she gets back in.

They settle into a routine that isn’t quite platonic, isn’t quite romantic.

A loud knock at her door startles Rey from her meditation.

With a twinge of annoyance, Rey stays sitting on the bed and opens the door with the Force.

She’d told them all not to disturb her because she was meditating.

Finn comes through the door, looking sheepish. “I didn’t know you’d still be meditating,” he says, rubbing his neck. “It’s been three hours, I thought you’d be done.”

She sighs. “Sorry. Uh, what’s up?”

He comes to sit beside her. “We’ve got confirmation on the shipment arriving in the morning. 0600.”

Rey smiles tightly. “I’ll be there.”

The Resistance had taken to using Rey’s abilities as a token first shield. She did mundane things, like check that there were no enemies on a ship before it landed, cleaned out pipes, lifted large chunks of the bombed durasteel.

It’s work, good work, but it makes her feel like a puppet, like they see her Force abilities as nothing other than a more convenient way to complete the days jobs.

Rey wants to be out fighting.

She feels restless, like she needs a change. Rey’s never been particularly prone to self destruction, but she knows she’s edging closer and closer to doing something drastic.

Rey already knows what it will be.

She’s had to get herself off three times already in the past cycle, just to stop thinking about him at inopportune moments.

A pop in her ears, and pressure in her head.

“FN-2187,” Ben drawls, sitting next to her.

Rey stiffens.

“Uh . . . you okay, Rey?” Finn asks, taking in her sudden change in mood.

Ben leans in close to her, resting a hand on her thigh. “Yeah, you okay, Rey?”

Ben projects what he’s been feeling from her all day; lust, desire, satisfaction.

“I know what you’ve been doing today,” he whispers, nudging his nose against her head. “You naughty girl.”

“I just want to finish my meditation,” Rey tells Finn in a strangled voice.

“Oh, uh, okay,” he says, a little stunned.

Ben runs his hand up her thigh, and sucks her earlobe into his mouth.

Finn turns around when he reaches her door. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Fine!” she calls out, slamming the door.

Immediately she turns to Ben, throwing a leg over him, cupping his face with both her hands. He rests his arms against her thighs.

She looks down at him, he looks up at her.

Rey’s painfully aware that they’ve not ever properly kissed.

Ben takes his cues from her.

Rey takes her time, savoring the moment. She runs her fingers down his scar. She cards the hair at the back of his neck. She looks deep into his eyes, and knows that this is what she wants, forever.

Him and her.

Their lips touch with the patience of people who know they have infinity to explore each other. Rey has never felt so intensely close to anyone in her whole life, and she knows that he feels the same.

The bond hums with a bone deep satisfaction, a fulfillment of what has been building up.

“ _Ben,_ ” Rey whispers against his lips, and he whimpers in approval.

She opens her mouth to him, and he takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his arms wrapping entirely around her waist to pull her closer to him.

The bond catapults pleasure between the two of them, and Rey doesn’t know where she starts and he ends. She finds it impossible to stop, her own need mixing with his in a way that makes her frantic.

He feels her want, and flips them over, lying her down on the flat of her cot, and settling between her legs, her thighs locked tight around his hips.

Rey breaks the kiss to focus on undoing his shirt, and both of them quicken their movements, a heady desperation riding them of their clothes.

“Rey,” Ben says hoarsely, “please, say if this okay.”

“It’s okay,” she says, lust making her roll her hips, urging him to move.

He stills above her. “Rey,” he says gently.

She tries to get him to move, but he doesn’t budge. He’s as solid as a rock above her.

“Rey,” he says, more firmly. She looks up to him at his tone.

“I know what the bond is making you feel.” He cups her cheek. “If you don’t want this, we don’t have to.”

Rey wants this.

She kisses him. “I want you. What do you want?”

His eyes soften, and Rey feels a swell of something beautiful in him.

“I just want you. Always.”

They take it carefully, slowly, none of that frantic desperation that had built between them before.

Instead, there’s a contentedness, a slow exploration.  

It’s sweat-slicked bodies and moon lit skin. It’s harsh breathing and sweet reassurances. Mussed hair and swollen lips. It’s a push and pull, a give and take, and the bond bounces between them, heightening pleasure, reaching a crescendo again and again.

There’s a raw vulnerability in having their hands on each other.

Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms, and Rey thinks that never again will she regret this bond between them.

“You’re trembling,” Rey murmurs, pressing a kiss to his bare chest, her breath still coming in harsh pants from the absolute pleasure of having him inside her.

He presses closer to her, turning so he can wrap both arms around her. “I’ll be alright,” he whispers back.

Rey knows what this burning thing inside her is, but doesn’t think she’s ever put it into words before.

It’s a passionate fire in her veins, a desire to never be anywhere but by his side. It’s his laugh making her smile too, his touch comforting her after a particularly troubling day, his arms making her feel safe.

Rey sends it through to him, unable to voice the words, and he accepts and embraces it, then sends his own back. It’s deep, selfless; a _true_ love.

Rey has come to understand Ben is an innately emotional being. He is always, always, running at a higher emotional level than she is. Only in his anger is he completely consumed, and he is angry often.

But when he _isn’t_ angry – and Rey mostly meets him when he isn’t – he has such complicated emotions that Rey just can’t decipher them. They threaten to consume her, always, in their intensity and complexity.

And then, more often that not, what he’s saying doesn’t match what he’s feeling at all. If it weren’t for the bond, Rey would have no idea that underneath his calm façade is such turmoil. Rey has never been able to hide what she’s thinking. She’s never been good at deceiving.

She goes through emotion quickly, burns through it then moves to the next, but he . . . Ben is a like a mug of caf, emotion slowly but surely being poured in until it gets to the top and overflows, spreading everywhere around him; but it’s still made up of the same things, the same multiple ingredients.

When Ben adopts an aloof expression, masks emotions she would need a map to figure out, and Rey doesn’t need to ask the question of where he learnt how to act like a politician.

But now, right now, he is more open with her than he’s ever been. She has seen his heart, and it’s consumed by her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He sighs again, and Rey can see what it is he does want. The two of them, at peace. Finding somewhere, beautiful, green, where they can make a life with each other, outside of duty to a cause. 
> 
> Rey closes her eyes, and lets herself want for that, too. She’s never really wanted kids, but when she pictures them in the future, she see’s a family, a little girl with Ben’s laugh, a little boy with her hair. Rey and Ben finding a balance in the Force, with each other. 
> 
> Maybe one day they will be able to get that happy ending, but for now, they both know it’s out of reach.

Kylo doesn’t know exactly when he fell in love with Rey, just that it consumes him irrevocably. He wants the whole galaxy to know that Rey from Jakku has brought him to his knees.

Her smile is tattooed on his soul, her hands are imprinted in his mind.

She is his salvation, the reason he so desperately wants to save himself. He wants to look past his bloodstained hands like she does, to see the gentleness underneath that he can give her but will never grant himself. He wants to be Ben Solo.

Beautiful, broken, Ben Solo.

Loving Rey has made him more human. His heart is entirely in her hands. Ben has never felt so complete; the heart he thought he lost beats to the sound of her name.

And yet he will never be able to look his mother in the eye. Ben has lost many wars within himself, Kylo even more, but the one that he will never forgive himself for is killing his father.

He doesn’t want anyone to forgive him for that.

His only hope now is to try and atone for his sins; he can start by humbling himself before his mother.

Ben wishes he didn’t still blame his family for the path he was set on. He made his own choices, no one forced him kill to who he has, and yet, Ben is still ugly enough on the inside to think that _maybe if they’d tried harder. Maybe if they’d been around more. Maybe if they hadn’t sent me to Luke._

At some point, he will have to accept that they were just scared, too. They had a responsibility to him, to help him, but no one can help what they don’t know is happening.

Ben will not wait for an absolution that will never come.

Rey deserves more than him, but he will never be able to give her up.

 

 

 

Rey sits across from him, her legs crossed, her body bare to him.

He can’t cross his long legs like she can, so he sits with one leg bent on his bed, and one leg resting on the floor, his trousers still on.

Their hands are entwined between them.

“This is my worst one,” Rey says quietly, staring down at her leg.

His gaze follows hers. Along her thigh is a long, jagged slash, healed haphazardly, starting on the outside of her hip and then going down, crossing over her leg and ending on the inside of her knee.

“You know I scavenged on Jakku, in the Graveyard of Giants. The _Ravager_ and _Inflictor_ Star Destroyers were my main hunting grounds, because there was always something undiscovered.”

Rey takes a deep breath, and Ben squeezes her hand, trying to be reassuring. He must be in some way, because she continues on.

“Those ships were so damaged. So broken. I was maybe eight or nine, old enough to be desperate enough to go in, but too young to really understand how dangerous they were.”

Ben feels guilt roil through him. At eight or nine, he had yet to experience the worst of Snoke’s manipulation. He had started to come into his powers properly, but not enough yet that his mother and father were avoiding him.

At eight or nine, they had had vastly different experiences. Rey didn’t turn to the dark side.

He admires how much stronger than him she is.

“It was a day on the _Ravager_ ,” Rey continues. “I fell through a piece of the rusted durasteel. Not too far down, I didn’t break anything, but an edge sliced me as I fell through.”

He can see her memories; can feel the tears on his cheeks, feel the _burning_ in his leg, can feel her hopelessness, can see other scavengers not even looking at her as they walk past.

Rey keeps it in her mind for a moment, reminding herself of her strength, of what she’s done to get to this point.

Ben disentangles one of his hands from hers to caress the scar lightly, tracing his fingers along its length.

“I got in a fight in a bar,” Rey says. “I didn’t know they had knife, and they stabbed me in the stomach.”

She points out the scar, bellow her ribcage. He moves his hand to touch that one, too, gently sending her how grateful he is that she’s sharing this with him.

“I stole from Plutt,” she whispers. “I was his best scavenger, so he didn’t kill me, but he came close.”

She turns her torso slightly, revealing her side and back littered with tiny silver scars.

“Our fight with the Praetorian Guard.” She shows him her bicep. “Another one from Plutt.”

He caresses each one, pushing to her his devotion, his desire to never let anything bad happen to her again.

She shudders under his touch, a revulsion at her body worming its way through the love she feels from him.

“I have them, too,” he says, in an effort to break through her tension.

“Yours made you who you are. Mine are just reminders I come from nothing.”

Immense guilt crashes down on him, leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He doesn’t know how to address her background yet, doesn’t know how to heal the wound that he pulled open with no remorse, so instead he focuses on how she compares to him.

“Who I am?” He sneers in disgust with himself. He turns slightly, revealing the end of a white and faded scar that runs across his back. “I got this one the night I slaughtered my fellow padawans.”

“That was self defense,” Rey protests half-heartedly.

“Maybe,” he shrugs, “but I didn’t need to kill them. I knew enough to be able to incapacitate them without murdering them.”

Rey can’t argue with that.

“This one I got on my first mission from Snoke. I murdered an entire village because they were settled too close to a Force well that Snoke wanted to take advantage of.”

Rey covers the scar with her hand, like he had done to hers.

Ben lowers one shoulder, bringing into sharp relief an ugly, bubbled scar.

“My first lightsaber wound,” he tells her, trying not to think too deeply on the memories; he doesn’t want to burden her with that moment.

“Bacta?” she asks cautiously, her fingers brushing over it.

“It was punishment,” he says shortly.

Rey clearly doesn’t know how to respond to that.

He points to his face. “This one I got because I was beaten by someone who deserved to win more than I did. I was standing on a superweapon that I had approved, which had just killed nearly forty billion beings. I deserved to die that day. You should have killed me . . . I would have killed you.”

“Ben –“ Her voice breaks.

“This one –“ His voice breaks too. “This one I got from a Wookie just defending my father.”

Her trembling fingers skirt around the bowcaster scar from Chewie. If she can’t confront that demon head on, he will never blame her.

“I will never be half the person you are, Rey.”

Rey takes so long to answer that Ben thinks she won’t.

Finally, she says, “It’s not just black and white, light and dark. We can be shades of grey. I see goodness in you. You are worth saving, Ben Solo. I see you.”

Ben doesn’t know how that can be true. It sounds impossible, that he could somehow still have any good left in him.

He should never have been allowed to love her, because it makes him hope that he still has a chance; that the blood on his hands can be seen past.

“What can you see?” He asks, too hopeful.

She tilts her head at him, then runs her fingers down the scar she gave him in the battle she won. “You wouldn’t have killed me that day.”

Emotion overcomes him, makes tears well in his eyes. “I don’t deserve something as pure as this,” he says, crying.

He can see that Rey disagrees, but she’s as unused to comfort as he is, and is clearly unsure what to say.

“My greatest fear is losing you,” he whispers. “My greatest deed is loving you. You are the brightest star in the galaxy, Rey.”

Her breath hitches at his words. They’ve not verbalized their feelings yet, he knows, and he doesn’t even need her to say it back. He, more than anyone, understands how hard it is for her to say.

But he wants to say it, wants her hear the words, wants her to know that there is a being in the galaxy who’s whole world revolves around her.

Rey leans forward to kiss him, leaning so far into him that he falls back on his bed. She kisses him slowly, passionately. A sweet sigh escapes her lips, and Ben captures the noise gratefully, his lips moving worshipfully over hers.

There’s an ache in his body that is satisfied only by tasting her.

He feathers his fingertips along her arms, then down her spine, settling his hands at her waist. She gasps at the sensation, and he immediately takes advantage, licking his tongue along the roof of her mouth.

Her beautiful whine makes him arch his neck, trying desperately to get closer to her. Their naked chests touch, and a tingle radiates from where their skin meets. It’s an electrifying feeling he will never tire of. Ben sinks into the feel of her.

It’s a complete assault on his senses.

Rey moves slightly so she can undo the fastenings of his pants, and then disconnects their lips to push them off him. Ben needs to be inside her, needs to feel her tight cunt around him, needs the sweet release that only she can grant him.

But he lets her take it at her pace, lets her puzzle through the emotion he can feel swirling inside her.

Rey takes her time with him, kissing him slowly, deeply; quickly, passionately. She strokes his shaft, getting him so hard he’s aching. Ben can’t help the choked off groans he lets out every time she speeds up.

He can’t keep his roaming hands still for long, and finds his hand between her legs before he can stop himself. She’s already so wet for him, and it makes him groan further.

She’s so slick he can slide a finger straight inside her, then a second. He loses himself in her soft mewls, her little pants, her keening whines. Ben wants to make her come apart with just his fingers, then under his tongue, then –

“I want you inside me,” she gasps, “now.”

Rey moves her hips up and grips his cock, lining him up to her entrance, and he’s forced to remove his fingers from her.

They both moan as she sinks down on him.

His breathing is erratic, uneven, before she even starts moving. Finally, Rey rolls her hips, and he can’t stop the snap of his hips upwards. She presses her hands against his tight chest, leaning most of her weight onto him.

“I’m in charge,” she bites out, but it loses its potency as her eyes roll back when he bucks up again.

Rey draws up, until just the tip of his cock is still inside her. He tries to buck his hips up again, but she rises up further.

“I’m in charge,” she repeats, and he’s so desperate for her that he stills completely.

She sinks down on him again, and Ben has to grip her thighs to stop himself from moving. Rey bites her lip, then smiles down at him, and the sight of her above him takes his breath away.

Slowly, Rey rolls her hips, again and again, and her taking her pleasure from him makes his own coil in his gut.

He can feel her tightening around him, but it isn’t quite enough to push her over the edge.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re in charge,” he groans out, “but can I just –“

“Yes,” she gasps, “yes.”

Ben sits up, wrapping his arms around her waist. He makes her lean back slightly, taking her weight, so that he can suck her right nipple in his mouth.

“ _Oh,_ ” she moans. “ _Ben.”_

Her movements speed up, her hips rolling with a frequency that makes his stomach tighten.

But she’s still not close enough, so he removes his mouth from her nipple to bite her shoulder – her hitched gasp makes him grin – and then he jerks her back to him so he can suck and nibble just below her ear, where he knows she’s sensitive.

Her head falls back, and her movements stutter, so he takes complete control. Ben flips them over, hitches one of his elbows under her knee to bring it to her chest, then sets a fast and unforgiving pace that has her arching her back and crying out.

“Oh, o-oh, Ben, _please_!”

“You like that?” he grunts, his voice low. He bites her lower lip between his. “Tell me you like it, sweetheart.”

“I love it, I love it,” she keens. “ _Ben,_ yes, keep –“

She’s coming in seconds. Her cunt tightening around him, and the sparks shooting through the bond, make him come moments after she does.

They ride their peak together, and afterwards, she lays tightly encased in his arms.

 _I would watch the galaxy burns for you,_ he thinks. She looks up at him lazily, as if sensing his thoughts – which she probably is – her brows creasing in a beautiful confusion.

“Ben,” she sighs tiredly, nuzzling her nose against his bare chest. “Stop thinking so loudly.”

His lips quirk at her request. It’s funny, really, that he’d spent so many years of his life perfecting the ability to keep others out, but with her - . . . “I can’t help it,” he rumbles lowly. “Maybe you should stop listening.”

She rolls her eyes and then turns over so her back is facing him. She wriggles backwards, then reaches behind her to grab his hand and bring it around her waist. He turns his body obligingly to wrap around hers.

“I wish you could be here in the morning,” she whispers, sighing peacefully and settling into him further.

He closes his eyes and presses further into her, as well, her warmth seeping through his body and into his bones.

He was wrong before. He wouldn’t just watch the galaxy burn for her; he would burn it down himself.

 

* * *

 

Ben appears before her just as she’s finishing getting dressed. Before she can explain that she really has to go, he comes to stand behind her, placing his hands on her waist. He kisses her under her ear, the place that always makes her knees go weak, then slides his fingers into the waistband of her pants.

“Hey,” she says breathlessly.

He scratches his nails against her hipbones.

“Hey.” He bites her earlobe. “I haven’t seen you in four days.”

She hooks her arm behind her and around his neck. “Missed me, did you?”

He slips a hand lower, cupping her mound. “Missed this, more like,” he teases.

She scoffs a laugh. “And you’ll have to wait longer,” she informs him, stepping out of his grip. “I really have to go.”

“Go where?” he asks, following her out the door. He had long ago been through the Resistance base with her.

 _We have a supply coming in,_ she sends him mentally as she closes the door to the room behind her, unable to speak aloud to him now that she’s around other people.

“Hm,” he grunts, having no such compunction. “Still getting you to do meaningless tasks, then?”

 _I don’t want to talk about it,_ she grumbles.

They reach the hangar bay without any more talking, Rey walking quickly and Ben staying close behind her so no one walks through him.

By the time she gets there, the supply ship is already in orbit, and Poe is waiting for her anxiously.

“Rey!” he shouts, coming over to her quickly. “What happened, why are you so late? The ship’s been waiting to break atmo for fifteen minutes!”

“Sorry,” she says, more out of habit than her actually feeling the need to apologize. Not a single one of these transports had gone wrong yet, and they’d had hundreds in the year they’d been on 5251977.

He runs his hand through his hair. “Ah, doesn’t matter now. Come, come.”

Ben watches the exchange placidly behind her, looking around in boredom, though he shoots Poe a glowering glare when he touches Rey’s elbow to lead her deeper into the hangar. Rey just rolls her eyes at him.

After a year of harnessing her power, of meditating relentlessly, of looking inside her self, of practicing until exhaustion, of gently asking Ben questions about the Force when she _couldn’t_ work it out herself, this is easy.

She stares up where she can see the bulk freighter hovering above the atmosphere. Bulk freighters didn’t make planetfall, Rey had come to learn, instead usually docking at space stations and transfer yards.

Rey’s unsure where the credits come from, but she knows that Leia is spending a small fortune on getting the freighter to fill its cargo bay with supplies, come along this route, and stop at 5251977. The supplies alone would cost a ridiculous amount, but hiring the freighter and getting it go off route – well. Rey avoids thinking about it, usually.

They don’t even have enough members to fly the ships they’re getting delivered. Still, the day after a delivery the best food is always prepared.

Ben whistles lowly beside her.

“How’d you convince a BFF-1 bulk freighter to stop planetside?” he asks curiously. He squints up at it.

Rey ignores him and signals that it’s okay for the boarding craft to descend, and soon thereafter it and several X-wing fighters break atmo and land just outside the base.

Rey sighs, then follows behind Poe to greet the suppliers. Poe settles into easy repartee with them, but Rey just focuses on lifting the supply crates and sailing them behind her as she walks back inside the hangar.

“You’re getting very strong,” Ben remarks. “You don’t even look like you’re concentrating.”

 _How can I when your pretty face is beside me?_ She sends him a humored smile, then rolls her eyes. _They’re just crates, Ben, I’m not doing anything special._

“Your power turns me on,” he says, returning her smile.

She can’t stop the laugh that comes out of her, but she tries to smother it when other people around her look at her funny.

 _I think it’s just that you haven’t a fuck in four days_.

“I mean, sure, there’s that,” he plays along. “But, uh, no, it’s just you.”

She softens. _This will be over soon, then I can go back to my room._

“Can’t wait,” he grins.

Rey sets the crates down in the hangar, then hangs around for a few more minutes, making sure people see her, then she exits as soon as she see’s a clear path.

Just as they’re about to turn the last corner to her room, someone calls out to her.

“Rey, wait.”

Rey stills, and so does Ben. Her eyes slide to him, panicked, but he shuts himself off, his face dropping of all emotion.

Rey turns slowly, just as Leia rounds the corner.

Then Leia stops, her breath catching.

Ben turns around too, and Rey _swears_ Leia meets his eyes.

Confusion swims over Leia’s face, and she looks back to Rey, then back to the space in which Ben stands.

Rey has often wondered how Force sensitive Leia really is.

Leia must not be able to really see him, though, just sense him, because her eyes turn back to Rey, a darkness in their depths, an unfathomable sadness of loss and guilt.

“I, uh.” Leia clears her throat to regain her composure. “I just wanted to thank you, Rey.”

Leia walks closer to her, her eyes sliding over to Ben, before settling on Rey decisively.

“Oh?” Rey squeaks.

Leia nods, smiling hesitantly. “I know this work isn’t what you want to be doing, and I understand that you probably feel used. But it’s what we need to be doing at the moment.”

Rey doesn’t need another rousing speech on why her powers are useful.

Leia must sense that she’s said the wrong thing, because a sheepish expression crosses her features, and she’s obviously not used to misstepping because she flounders for a moment.

Rey gives her the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s no problem, General.”

Leia purses her lips. “Still,” she says, “you’re helping more than you realize. Thank you.”

Rey smiles, genuinely. She appreciates the general’s effort to seek her out and reassure her.

“You’re welcome,” Rey replies simply.

Rey almost forgets Ben is standing by her, but then Leia looks over again, her brow furrowing, before she shakes her head and walks off.

Rey lets out a huff.

“Come on,” she tells Ben lowly. “Let’s just get back.”

Rey takes his hand, and turns to walk back to her room, fully intending on offering the emotional support that he must so desperately need, but he squeezes her hand tightly and doesn’t let her walk. He’s looking down the hall, where his mother had just gone.

“Rey,” he says quietly, but it isn’t broken. It sounds determined.

He turns his head to look down at her, and his eyes are filled with such focused intensity it takes her breath away.

“I want to come home.”

 

* * *

 

Now that Ben’s made the decision to turn on the First Order, Rey has a lot of preparations to make.

First, she has to go about telling everyone she’s been psychologically connected to the Supreme Leader of the First Order for over a year. Then, she has to tell them that he’s coming back, convince them that that’s alright. She’ll probably have to admit that he’s basically been here before; she’ll probably have admit a lot of things about what she’s been doing with him to convince them that he truly is coming home.

Then. Well. Then they have to figure out how to actually get Ben out of the Order without getting killed. Rey would be entirely happy for him to just quietly leave in the middle of the night, to not even tell anyone he’s leaving and just have the Order figure it out after its already too late, but Rey can feel Ben’s sense of duty.

That, and the Resistance would definitely not ever even _consider_ reviewing his crimes without a major action against the Order from him.

Rey hates that she’s putting him in this position.

“I’ll run away with you, if that’s what you want,” she tells him one night. He’s lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and she’s playing with his fingers.

He turns to look at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Have you told them about us, yet?”

Rey sighs and kisses his fingers, one at a time. “Not yet. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Ben turns to look back at the ceiling. “It’s not something I can run away from anymore.” He closes his eyes and sighs. “It’s not something you can run away from, either.”

Rey knows he’s right.

“I’m sorry I’ve put this on you,” he whispers, and when Rey looks up to his face, his face is screwed in sorrow. Pain flares through the bond. “This isn’t what I wanted for us. This – loyalty. I didn’t want us to be bound to our duty.”

He sighs again, and Rey can see what it is he _does_ want. The two of them, at peace. Finding somewhere, beautiful, green, where they can make a life with each other, outside of duty to a cause.

Rey closes her eyes, and lets herself want for that, too. She’s never really wanted kids, but when she pictures them in the future, she see’s a family, a little girl with Ben’s laugh, a little boy with her hair. Rey and Ben finding a balance in the Force, with each other.

Maybe one day they will be able to get that happy ending, but for now, they both know it’s out of reach.

“This is who we are,” she says. “Duty runs in our blood.”

An ugly smile pulls the corners of his mouth down, and finally gives the answer to the question she’d asked him. “Then we can’t run away, can we?”

No. They can’t.

Rey doesn’t bring it up again, and the next day she seeks Leia out to tell her everything.

“Ben wants to come home,” Rey blurts out, before Leia has even had a chance to greet her.

Leia leans against the doorframe heavily. “Come in.”

Rey fidgets, unable to sit down. She opens her mouth to speak, but Leia holds up her hand.

“Is he here now?” Leia whispers.

Leia has obviously pieced together more than Rey thought she had.

“No.” Rey hesitates, then says, “But I saw him last night. He doesn’t want to run, anymore.”

Leia’s face screws up in anguish, and Rey can’t help but think that she’s seen that expression before, on someone else’s face.

“You can’t know how many times I’ve wished to hear that, Rey,” Leia starts, slowly, looking at the wall as if hoping it could tell her the answers to all the questions in the galaxy. “Even just someone else calling him by his name . . .”

Rey feels unease creep into her bones.

“I can’t keep hoping for him to come back, Rey.”

It feels like Rey’s whole body jolts. She blinks rapidly.

“You don’t have to hope, General,” Rey says slowly, because she can’t piece together Leia’s thought process. “He explicitly told me. We have a plan.”

Leia’s face crumples even more. The look in Leia’s eyes comes only from a person who has lost everything, time after time. “And if he changes his mind? If he - . . . doesn’t make it?”

“He’s coming,” Rey says, conviction in every bone in her body. Then, she admits something she’s never told anyone else. “He was the one that killed Snoke. I know everyone thinks it was me but . . . it wasn’t. Ben killed him.”

Leia hesitates, obviously aching to believe Rey; but then her face hardens.

“Until my son is standing in front of me, I can’t believe that he is anything other than Kylo Ren.” Rey understands that heartbreak, that inability to face things head on because of an all consuming fear of it messing everything up, of shattering that closely held illusion that everything will be okay if she can just get through this one more day.

Leia stands. “Rey. Please. Don’t come to me again with this.”

Rey’s heart beats furiously.

“I can’t take any more loss. Please. Unless he is here, please.”

Leia has had to be strong for so many years. Rey will not add another burden, especially not with the woman standing so broken before her.

“Unless he’s here,” Rey promises.

 

 

Rey is unsure how to tell Ben that this particular part of their plan has derailed.

“She will back us up when you get here,” Rey says, holding on tightly to his hand. His grip is slack in hers. “She’s just scared.”

Rey feels nothing from his end of the bond.

“I don’t deserve more than that,” he says finally. “I don’t know why I hoped for more.”

His face his blank, and his emotions are closed off. But when he turns his head to look at her, his eyes are as full of expression as they usually are. There’s an anguish in them that Rey wishes she never had to see on the face of the man she loves. “Why do I still wish they did more? Why do I still blame them?”

Rey knows bits and pieces of his past. She knows the same things as the rest of the galaxy; she knows things from Leia; she knows things from Luke; she even knows some from Ben himself.

But they don’t really talk about how much his past affected him emotionally. With the bond, they’d never really needed to. Ben expressing his anguish verbally is a level of intimacy that Rey didn’t expect from him.

“You’re only human,” Rey whispers, pressing her forehead against his. “She is, too.”

“Do you think she’ll be able to forgive me?”

Rey ponders the questions. She doesn’t know the answer, truly. _Yes_ , she’s inclined to say, but she can’t know for sure. Rey doesn’t know from experience how far a mother’s love can really extend.

Still, Rey understands the question he’s really asking. _Does she still think I’m worthy of being saved?_

The answer to that is complicated, sure, the same misgivings holding Leia back as holding back forgiveness.

But, Rey _does_ know one thing about Leia, even if Rey doesn’t know if she can forgive Ben.

“Your mother wants you to come home,” Rey whispers fiercely, digging her fingers into his biceps in her intensity.

She understands both perspectives, really. Ben wonders if he’s worthy of being saved. Leia’s fragile heart can’t take it any longer.

But Rey’s heart can, and Ben _is_ worth being saved, so she will bring him home, no matter who disagrees.

But the doubt starts to creep in. If his own mother can’t bring herself to get her hopes up, if she’s been waiting for more than a decade for this moment and has stopped believing it possible, why is Rey so special?

Why should she think she has the ability to help this man?

Rey spends a lot of time building mental shields to hide those thoughts from him. The last thing she wants is for him to sense her hesitancy and it be the reason he decides to stay away.

The tenuousness of the situation is very real, and Rey struggles.

Still, she pushes through, because that’s just what she does. She pushes through to get what she needs, what she wants.

Three weeks after he first says it, they have a basic plan on how to get him home. He’s going to utilize the transports they get to sneak into safety from the Order. The plan to actually get away from the Order begins and ends with _I’ll do something drastic, so they need time to regroup._

Considering no one had wanted to listen to Rey about Ben coming, she figures he doesn’t need to do some big show, but he insists.

“Will Hux be able to take over the Order?” Rey asks in the days leading up to his defection. She’s gone to him, but it’s during his day cycle, and he has duties to perform; he can’t just stay in his room and talk with her.

He’s keeping as up to date on the running’s of the Order as possible before he leaves, so any and all information he divulges will be of use.

Ben frowns. _Yes,_ he sends her. _He has enough sway to be able to take over, I think._

A plan begins to form. “So why don’t you just kill him? Who else is there? Does anyone else have enough sway to influence the masses, to keep pushing the Order’s political agendas?”

_I . . . that could work._

Rey gets excited. “That way you’re not putting yourself in any unnecessary danger, but you’re still crippling the Order, at least for a while. Without effective leadership, it will crumble faster than if we took out their fleet.”

Ben isn’t as excited as Rey, but can see the logic to her plan. She knows he wants to burn it down, wants to create as much destruction as possible, but Rey has slowly but surely learnt that sometimes that isn’t the most effective way of going about things.

They don’t have to wait long, because the next shipment comes in two weeks.

“It will be this planets night time,” Rey tells him three days before he’s due to come. “So there will be extra precautions in place. I will be at the front to sense out danger, and so I’ll be able to protect you from them if they try to stop you.”

He dips his head to kiss her sweetly. “I’m sure you will.”

“And I contacted the suppliers yesterday and informed them that they would have a defecting Order official with them.”

He smiles lightly. “It’s really happening.”

She kisses him again. “It’s really happening.”

 

 

 

The day before the shipment is due, Rey can hardly stay still from how overcome she is. They will _finally_ be together.

There’s excitement deep in the pit of her belly, and she can’t go to sleep that night. The Force doesn’t connect them, and it keeps her in anticipation. They both know the plan, have worked out all the kinks, but still. She wishes she had seen him tonight, if just to settle her nerves.

5251977 has been in darkness for thirteen regular day cycles now, and there are still thirteen more to go before the sun rises. Usually the constant darkness makes Rey sleepy, dulls her senses, but this time the anticipation has kept her completely alert.

The chrono by her cot bleeps for 5am, and Rey sits up immediately. The shipment is set to arrive at 0530, and Rey is the first one there.

She bounces on her heels as Poe comes to stand by her side, rubbing his eyes. “You never get here this early.”

She can’t help the wide grin she sends him. “I have a good feeling about this one.”

He eyes her suspiciously, but ultimately must decide he’s too tired to deal with whatever has her acting like this, and just goes back to waiting. Slowly, more people begin to join them, and the more people there are the more real it feels to Rey.

Finally, Poe gets the notification that the freighter has stopped planet side.

“Okay, Rey, you’re up.”

But Rey is already out the hangar doors and looking up to see the ship. She reaches out, trying to sense him, but she can’t quite find him.

It’s odd, she knows, and her stomach drops. She should be able to sense him, even without their bond. She should be able to sense him because he’s Force sensitive. She should be able to sense him because he should be _there_.

Had something happened? Had he been taken down? Had they underestimated how difficult it would for him to get out?

She broadens her sense, and the smile completely drops from her face.

Rey can’t sense anyone. Well, no one she’s come to know. There are too many people on the ship.

“Something’s wrong,” she says to Poe, then closes her eyes to focus more clearly.

“What do you mean something’s wrong?” Poe demands. “Like what? Rey, like what?”

Ben isn’t here, that much is obvious. Neither are the people that are supposed to be. It’s hard to focus past her confusion, past her fear, but she dips into her training, pushes all emotion back to focus on the Force.

“ _Fuck,_ okay, everyone, set general quarters! Man your stations, move, move, move!”

Rey doesn’t listen to Poe.

Instead, she stretches out, looking deeper into the ship. There are no large blockages indicating cargo like there usually are. Instead, there are just people. Hundreds and hundreds of people.

And then further behind - . . . there’s another ship.

Rey snaps out of her focus. “It’s the Order!” she shouts. “There’s a second ship!”

Rey will not think about what this means for Ben and his affiliation. She will not.

The battle is messy. The Order becomes aware fairly quickly that they know what’s going on, and they send TIE fighters down. The Resistance meets them with X-wings, and the fight is short but fierce.

Rey flies the _Falcon,_ in a fashion reminiscent of on Crait.

The Order bombs the base.

Eventually, they have to abandon 5251977. There’s nothing left. They have more numbers left than they did on Crait, but not by much.

They don’t have any supplies.

Rey blows a hole in the side of the freighter and the _Absolution_ , the Order ship, but is forced to retreat without bestowing as much damage as her anger demands.

She doesn’t look for Kylo.

“Go to Dantooine,” Leia tells Rey softly, sitting in the copilot seat.

“That’s the other side of the galaxy.” Rey’s voice sounds dull, even to herself.

“We need to get far from the Order. They won’t expect us to go so far.”

“It will take at least three cycles to get there. We don’t have the supplies.”

Leia puts her hand on Rey’s arm. “We have the fuel. Dantooine, Rey.”

Leia’s soft voice makes Rey’s emotions swell. There’s a gentleness to Leia that Rey’s only ever seen from her son, and it makes this worse.

Rey doesn’t realize she’s crying until Leia wipes a tear away. “I thought I could save him,” Rey whispers.

Leia keeps her hand on Rey’s arm, the same pain rolling through her. “So did I.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will help you,” he says. “I will come, and help you build it back up.”
> 
> “I don’t want you to come, Kylo.”
> 
> “Don’t-“ He grits his teeth, his jaw twitching under the strain of his glare. “That’s not my name.”

“You,” Rey spits out, as soon as Kylo appears to her next. It’s been five days since the attack, seven since she saw him last.

Rey doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know how he could have fooled her so completely, but there is no other option. How else would the Order have found them? Why would he not have been there?

“Rey,” he says desperately, stepping closer to her. “I had no part of that mission.”

“Then how did they know!” she shouts, the anger she’s kept close to heart for five days making her blood boil. “How did they know where we were, what time the supply was coming, who was delivering it?!”

He steps away from her and her roiling fury.

“Hux must have found the notes in my desk and –“

When before her blood ran hot, now it goes cold.

“You had it written down?” Her voice is quiet, seething. “You had our co-ordinates written down, the time our transport was coming written down? Why? _Why?”_

“I was coming with the transport!” he says quickly. Like she needs the reminder.

“And you needed to write it to – what – _remember_?” she spits.

“I – it was . . . I was trying to visualize,” he says lamely. “In case there was something wrong.”

“Then why didn’t you come?” Rey has never heard her own voice drip with such venom.

Guilt washes through him, and Rey feels it from her end of the bond. “Hux said he was planning an attack in the next couple of days,” he says quietly. “I stayed to stop him.”

“And instead led him right to us?”

“I didn’t know that he already knew where you were!”

Rey is painfully aware that what he’s telling her sounds like complete bullshit. He obviously isn’t as aligned with her as she thought he was, and yet she can’t help but still divulge information.

“We just lost everything,” she tells him, and now her voice is devoid of all inflection. It’s lifeless, as empty as the promises he’d given her. “Everything we’d built back up. All those people.”

“I will help you,” he says. “I will come, and help you build it back up.”

“I don’t want you to come, Kylo.”

“Don’t-“ He grits his teeth, his jaw twitching under the strain of his glare. “That’s not my name.”

The weight of his duality feels like the weight of the galaxy, suddenly, and she presses the heels of her palms in her eyes to stop her tears.

“Then what is it?” she asks, exhaustion on her tongue and in the lines of her face. “What is your name? Kylo? Ben?”

The silence between them is loud with uncertainty.

“I can’t keep doing this,” she tells him, voice cracking. Despite how wrecked she feels, she takes her hands from her eyes to stare at him. She lets her tears fall, free for him to see. “Kylo – Ben – please. Don’t put this on me anymore. I tried to help you and it -”

 _It cost the lives of the Resistance._ Maybe he had no part in it. Maybe he truly was going that morning.

But he hadn’t.

And Hux had destroyed them because of Kylo Ren.

He steps towards her, his hands by his side but his palms turned toward her, his fingers curled. His gloves are still on. “Rey,” he whispers, his face painted in pain. “Don’t give up on me, too. I won’t be able to – . . . Rey. Please.”

But it’s not her job to save him. He has to figure out on his own who he is. She can’t keep hoping for something that may never come. She can’t love a man that doesn’t exist.

“Ben,” she says, a final concession. “I will be here for you if you decide that’s what you want.”

If you are not just the Dark, goes unspoken. By the anguish on his face, he knows that’s what she means as well as he knows everything else about her.

He steps towards her again. “Rey, I – I will – I can -.”

His sentence hangs precariously in the room. He doesn’t finish what he was going to say.

Rey can’t help but feel disappointed, yet again. This why she has to do this. She cannot keep feeling such shattering emotion. She needs to start piecing herself back together.

“I need you to leave,” she tells him, with a conviction she doesn’t feel. The deep places of her heart and mind will always, always, want to save him. They will always belong to him.

He looks like he will protest, but he stays silent for a few moments longer.

“The bond will break soon, I’m sure.” He says quietly.

But she can’t look at him any longer. She closes her eyes and looks into her mind, reaching out to the place at the base of her neck that she’s come to associate with him. She reaches out and grasps the string that connects them with two hands. The bond hums loudly under her touch, so pleasurable it’s painful. Her breath hitches.

Distantly, she hears Ben. “Rey? Rey, what are you doing?”

Rey ignores him.

In her mind, she tugs on the bond experimentally. It’s taut, and holds strong. She tries to pull it apart between her hands, but its too strong. The connection is thick with their intimacy, with their understanding of each other; with their love.

So she turns to the root, at the base of her skull, and pulls. Her mind shudders with the force of it.

“Rey! Rey, stop, please!”

But she pulls and pulls and pulls and eventually realizes that she’s screaming. Her minds cracks and opens where it connects to his, and then she’s free. The bond severs. Cold seeps from the hole and through her body.

When she gathers enough awareness to leave her mind and focus on what she’s seeing, her eyelashes stick together from dried tears and she’s on her back, looking at the ceiling. Her back is cold from the durasteel that the entire ship is made from, keeping them all safe but never able to keep any warmth.

Rey turns her head, and there’s warmth on her cheek.

“Rey?” A soft voice above her makes her turn her head back up. It feels both like it takes forever and that it’s so fast she doesn’t know how it happened.

A face comes into her blurred vision, and she blinks up, slowly.

“Finn?” Her tongue is like sand, heavy in her mouth. His name is sluggish, drawn out, and her throat is hoarse from her screaming. “Wat - . . . water.”

She hears Finn talking quickly and lowly, but her vision goes blurry and her ears ring, and she can’t hear what he’s saying to whomever else is in the room.

When she can focus again, there’s a straw at her lips. She pulls at it and its beautiful on her throat, so she takes more sips.

“Slowly, go slowly,” Finn says gently, and Rey registers than he’s running his fingers through her hair.

Rey follows the command, but still it feels like the water is gone too soon. Her tongue feels lighter now and some clarity returns.

She doesn’t want to return to such an incapable state, but needs to know if it worked. Tentatively, she reaches her fingers out into her mind, intending to go deep to find his presence, but she needn’t bother. The space he used to be in is like a gaping wound, and its emptiness is all that’s left in her heart.

“He’s gone,” she croaks.

“Who?” Finn asks, confusion written upon his face. “Who’s gone where?”

Rey can’t look at him anymore, so she turns her head away. There, sitting on her bed, is Leia.

Rey doesn’t want to look at her either, Leia, General Organa; Ben’s mother; but finds she cannot simply look away.

Leia looks weighed down, and Rey’s words serve only to deepen the sadness in her eyes.

Slowly, Leia stands from Rey’s cot, and then manages to sit on the floor beside Rey and Finn. Leia reaches out and places her hand on Rey’s cheek, running her fingers over her cheekbone in a way Rey can only describe as motherly, though she’s never felt such a thing.

“No one is ever truly gone,” Leia whispers.

 

* * *

 

Rey wakes up to a mass mobilization of the base on Dantooine. Someone’s pounding on her door, and there is the tin of shouting reaching her even through the door.

“Something’s happened,” Finn says as soon as Rey swings the door open.

Dread settles in her stomach.

“We’re not under attack,” Finn assures. “But something happened with the Order. We’re trying to determine exactly what, then we’re going to take advantage. Come on, Leia wants you.”

By the time Rey and Finn have raced through the barracks, the leadership have a bit more information.

“We think there’s been a coup,” Leia informs them, catching Rey’s eye meaningfully.

Rey’s heart stops.

Ben.

It’s been three months. Has he finally followed through on his promise?

“We’re not sure of the details, just that several high ranking leaders in the Order have been killed,” Leia continues.

“Ben?” Rey can’t help but ask, her voice quiet and strained but still able to lift over the silence of the room.

Everyone’s heads swivel to stare at her. Why is she using his first name, she can see them wonder. Why does she sound so worried? Why does she _care?_

Leia bites her lip. “Undetermined.”

Rey wishes, not for the first time, that the bond were still open.

“He’s following our plan,” Rey says, surely, though really she’s not sure at all. She has no idea what’s happening, no idea if Ben is behind it, if maybe he’s . . .

“Plan?” Finn asks dumbly. People around him murmur their confusion, as well.

Rey decides it’s time to be truthful, but she needs them to act fast. Already, her mind is going over possible scenarios, how she can help Ben get out, get home.

“Ben and I had a Force Bond,” she explains quickly, talking over the people who shout in outrage. “We were in communication for over a year. Before the bond closed, we had a plan for him to defect. He was going to kill the leadership team, cripple the Order’s hierarchy so that it would fall from within, and then sneak to 5251977 on one of the supply drops.”

“Who authorized that?” An angry voice to the side shouts. Rey recognizes him as Kellig, a Mon Calamari that had risen through the ranks quickly after the deaths of Resistance High Command aboard the _Raddus._

Rey is too busy planning to answer him. Still, her ears perk when Leia says, “I did.”

The room descends into chaos, people shouting over the validity of the decision, the strategy of sharing the location of the Resistance, leaving them vulnerable to an attack that ultimately happened.

“We have to help him,” Rey says, though no one can hear her. “Listen to me. We have to get him out.”

They keep shouting over each other.

Rey needs to get out there. She needs to get to the _Finalizer,_ needs to help him escape and needs to – she needs to apologize, and hope that he can find it in himself to forgive her for not trusting that he was the man they both wanted him to be.

“Listen!” Rey’s anger makes the room shake, and everyone quiets down. “I’m taking the _Falcon_ and I’m going to help Ben.”

“He doesn’t deserve our help.” Rey can’t see the face of the man who said that. It’s probably lucky for him. “He deserves to perish for his crimes.”

“Is it not our job to save as many souls in the galaxy as possible?” Rey shouts, anger making her feel like she’s on fire.

“Kylo Ren has no soul,” the same angry man as before, Kellig, spits.

“Maybe so. But is he not doing your job right now? While we stand here bickering, _Kylo Ren_ is singlehandedly crippling the First Order. Do you want to go out there and be part of that, or do you want to stay here wondering what we’ll do instead? It’s time to end this.”

This is something that can’t be argued.

Rey wonders what the kriff Ben’s doing. He must know that she probably still thinks he was responsible for the hijacking of the last shipment on 5251977. So why is he still defecting, if there’s nothing for him to come to?

Why is he risking his life to leave the Order if he has nowhere to go?

The answer comes to her slowly, as she’s running through the base, going to the _Falcon,_ and flying off Dantooine.

He’s saving himself.

Rey pushes the _Falcon_ faster than she ever has before. The run from Dantooine to Coruscant, where Rey stayed long enough in the meeting to learn some of the Order’s fleet was stationed, would usually take almost a day to complete. Rey manages to push the _Falcon_ to half that time, but it still takes five hours.

Not everyone decided to come with her. Some had refused to be part of a mission alongside Kylo Ren, but some had stayed back because it wouldn’t help to have so many people in one ship.

After 5251977, they hadn’t had the credits to be able to purchase more fighters or cruisers. They had the _Falcon,_ and that was about it.

Rey, and fifteen other Resistance members, reach Coruscant after the majority of the fight is over.

The _Finalizer_ is burning, but limping away from the planet so it doesn’t crash down onto the surface of the city-planet. Three other _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyers are there; the _Absolution,_ the Destroyer that had laid waste to 5251977, has been split in half, one half floating but the other half dangerously close to breaking atmo and gouging into Coruscant. The other two, the _Harbinger_ and the _Conqueror_ are obviously unsure where to point their defense, but they’re armed and ready.

There’s an explosion from the _Harbinger._

Ben.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Poe and Finn exclaim at the same time.

Poe is in the co-pilot seat, Finn standing behind them.

“Poe, you have the flight controls,” Rey commands.

“I have the controls,” he responds, pumping the stick then taking complete control.

“Get me to the _Harbinger_ ,” Rey says. “I need to get Ben.”

Poe frowns angrily but still flies towards _Harbinger._ “Are you seriously going to try to save that asshole right now?”

Anger makes Rey’s eye twitch. “Poe, in case it escaped your notice, there’s _half of a fucking Star Destroyer_ headed towards Coruscant. I need Ben to help me try and stop it! Now get me to that fucking ship!”

Poe smartly shuts his mouth and flies towards _Harbinger._

But the two Destroyers have caught sight of the _Falcon_ and obviously are attributing their demise to the Resistance, and so start to fire.

Poe is a great pilot, better than Rey, and she’s glad that she handed control over to him.

The explosion from the _Harbinger_ has also disabled the ships shields, so the _Falcon_ dodges the laser cannon’s shots and gets as close to the _Harbinger_ hangar bay as possible.

“Rain hell on those Destroyers, boys,” Rey says to Finn and Poe, grabbing a comlink and pocketing it. “We’ll meet with you when we can.”

“How in the hell are you going to find your way around a Star Destroyer, Rey?” Poe shouts, frustration making his face pinch.

“I’ve been onboard the _Finalizer_ a hundred times,” she says, looking out the window and to the hulking ship. She had walked beside Ben on _Finalizer_ so many times, and she knows it’s corridors like the back of her hand. “How different can it be?”

“Um, what?”

“Rey.” Finn grabs her arm. “I’m not saying don’t bring him back but - . . . just think about the consequences of bringing him here.”

She shakes her arm loose, but softens her voice at the distraught look on his face. “I’ll be careful. You guys be careful, too. Let’s bring the Order down.”

She sends them what she hopes is a reassuring smile, then avoids as many people as possible on her way to the escape pods.

Leia isn’t here, so the only other person Rey feels the need to talk to before she goes is Rose. They’d struck up an easy and beautiful friendship, and Rey had come to think of her as someone she goes to when she just wants to talk, or when everything’s too much and she needs to cry, or even just to laugh and relax with.

But there isn’t any time to find Rose. Rey hopes Finn will explain to her where she’s gone.

Rey gets into an escape pod with no fuss, and finds herself in the _Harbinger_ in no time. Another explosion rocks the hull and Rey doesn’t really know where to start to find him. Where would he be?

She doesn’t need to know where to start, she realizes, she can just find him through the Force.

Even though they’re not connected through the bond anymore, she could pick out his Force signature even if he were surrounded by a thousand Force sensitives. Luckily, though, she doesn’t have to; he’s the only Force sensitive onboard.

Ben is rigging explosives in the engine room when she finds him. He’s still in his First Order garb, to blend in or because he has nothing else to wear, Rey doesn’t know.

She hasn’t seen him in three months. She wasn’t expecting it to be this emotional.

“Ben!” Her voice breaks.

He stills, then whips around to face her.

“Rey?” he asks, like he doesn’t believe it could be her.

“Ben, oh gods.” She slams into him, and he doesn’t even hesitate in wrapping his arms around her and lifting her from the ground.

The Force bond may not be active, but being here with him, _actually_ being here with him, touching him, flesh to flesh, is enough to make emotion jump between them.

He’s shocked, relieved, frightened.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she sobs into his shoulder. “I should have believed you, I’m so sorry.”

“Rey,” he croaks. He seems incapable of saying nothing else but her name.

She pulls back from him, wiping the tears from her face. “What do you think you’re doing, taking on the Order by yourself?”

He keeps her hands around her shoulders, his fingers caressing her skin like he never wants to stop touching her again. In turn, she cups his face.

It doesn’t escape her notice that this is actually the first time they’ve been in each other’s company proper since the _Supremacy._ Since the last time she shipped herself to him.

“What do you think you’re doing, coming here to help?” he shoots back.

She rolls her eyes but smiles at him. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He looks like he’s going to say something else, but Rey interrupts him, remembers the urgency of the situation.

“Half the _Absolution_ is diving towards Coruscant,” Rey says, and his eyes widen. “I need your help to stop it.”

“Stop it?”

“The Force, Ben. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

Together, they finish setting the bombs.

“Rey, I’m not sure we have enough power to stop that thing from breaking atmo,” Ben says hurriedly as they start towards the bridge of _Harbinger,_ where they will be able to get a visual on the _Absolution._

They cut down anyone in their path with Ben’s lightsaber.

When they get to the bridge, Ben stops at the doorway in horror of what he sees, but Rey powers forward.

There are only a couple officers there, desperately trying to stop the ship from falling apart. The explosives they’d set in the engine room go off, and the reverberations spring Ben in to action; he kills the Order officers, and he comes to stand beside her.

Beside them, the _Falcon_ is flying valiantly against the _Conqueror,_ shooting their laser cannons at each other with little finesse.

In front of them, though, the front half of _Absolution_ careens towards Coruscant, beginning to burn up.

“This is too much for the light,” Ben says to her, his words slurring together in his rush to explain. “We’re too untrained to accomplish this with the light. We need to channel the dark.”

The idea scares her. She hopes the fact she’s doing it for a greater good means it will be balanced out.

“Channel your negative emotions,” Ben instructs.

It isn’t hard. She looks into herself, finds the anger that’s been lurking for months, the frustration that makes it hard for her to sleep, the passion she feels for the man beside her.

Ben is doing the same. Emotion bounces between then two of them, a powerful force building up.

Rey reaches out with her mind, gritting her teeth.

It isn’t enough power.

So she looks deeper.

The sadness at how many people she’s had to say goodbye to; the hate she feels for the Order; the terrifying loneliness that had plagued her all her life.

Rey can feel the edges of the ship, the points burning. She pulls the Force down, like a blanket, covering the nose of the ship to catch debris.

The abandonment from her parents; her fury at the realization they wouldn’t be coming back; the disgust with Plutt, at how he had been in complete control of her.

The _Absolution_ groans. It stops falling.

The love from Finn; laughing with Rose; cheap contests with Poe; a mother’s touch from Leia.

Light bursts from her fingertips.

The _Absolution_ pulls back.

Vaguely, she knows she’s screaming.

Ben touching her gently at night; Rey telling him how she survived cold nights in the desert, Ben telling her his favorite memory of his father; crying together; laughing together; getting to know each other; making love in a moonlit room.

Beside her, Ben screams too.

Coruscant is safe. _Absolution_ slams into _Harbinger._

Rey’s focus breaks. Durasteel rains down around her. Her whole body aches, her head throbs; her eyes can’t focus, but she knows she’s crying.

Ben is beside her, on the ground too, his arms wrapped around his ribs and breathing heavily.

The _Harbinger_ groans as it turns on its side from the force of the collision with the other ship. Rey and Ben slide down the ground and land heavily on the wall, anything loose shifting with them.

“Can’t . . . move.” Rey grinds out, unable to even turn her head to look at him, completely drained of all energy from how they’d used the Force.

He grunts in agreement.

Rey’s comlink blares to life.

“ _Rey!”_ It’s Finn. “ _We saw_ Harbinger _roll! Please tell me you got off that ship!”_

Rey can’t even lift her arm to get to her comlink.

“ _Rey. Rey, come in, Rey, please!”_

She whimpers at his desperation.

“ _Rey, please, are you still on the ship?_ ” There’s a crackling on the other end. “ _We’re coming to get you, Rey, where are you? Rey, please, where are you?”_

It hurts, her whole body hurts, but she slides an arm against the ground to get the comlink from her pocket. She can’t move her arm up to bring the comlink to her mouth, she just can’t, so she presses the button and hopes she speaks loud enough for them to hear.

“Bridge,” she croaks.

“ _Rey! Rey thank god, where are you?”_

“Bridge,” she says, as loud as she can, her body protesting. “Bridge.”

“ _Bridge, did you say the bridge? Press the PTT once for yes, twice for no._ ”

She’s so grateful he doesn’t ask her to speak again.

She holds down the press-to-transmit button once, for yes.

“ _Okay, Rey, we’re coming, we’re coming. Just hold on, okay, we’re on our way.”_

Ben groans beside her. “My foot is pinned.”

The _Falcon_ hovers in front the viewport.

“ _Rey, we’re here. Where are you?”_

“What do you mean?” she asks, willing her head to turn so she can look at him.

“Durasteel,” he gasps. “My leg. It’s stuck.”

They’re so close. Rey will not let him out of her sight now.

“ _Rey, answer me! Where are you?_ ”

Somehow, somehow, she lifts one limb, then the other. She cries out as she gets to her knees, then crawls over to him.

“Go, Rey. Go.”

“I – will – not!”

Each movement scalds her muscles. She doesn’t know how she is making her body move, she just knows that she will not leave him. She will never leave him again.

Rey can see what he can feel. A durasteel beam has landed on one of his legs, on his shin. She couldn’t even hope to lift that normally. The Force is the only option, but it feels burnt out, like her reserve is empty; the place inside her where the Force sits is burning in its void.

“Rey, you need to go.”

“ _Rey, we’re here! Can you see us? Where are you?”_

“I’m not leaving you here,” she grits out. Her fingers slide over the side of the beam.

“ _Rey! Answer me!”_

“Give me your comlink,” Ben says, curling his body to get closer to her. She hands it over to him, then focuses back on the beam.

The comlink crackles as Ben activates the PTT. “She’s on the port side, on the inverted side.”

“ _. . . Ren?”_

“Yes, yes. There’s no way in here, blast through the viewport. The control panels will mostly protect her from the falling transparisteel, but get in here quickly.”

The comlink is silent from the other end.

“Stop saying ‘she’ like you’re not coming,” Rey commands. Experimentally, she tries to lift the beam. It doesn’t budge. “You’re coming with me, Ben Solo.”

He grabs her ankle, and she turns to him.

“ _We’re going to blast it in t-minus one minute. Gret and Yvun will come in with two envirosuits. Can you protect yourselves until then?”_

Rey wants to cry. No, she can’t. She doesn’t even know how to gather the strength to lift this beam off the man she loves.

Ben pauses, looks her in the eye, then smiles sadly at her as he activates the PTT. “Bring one suit. I’ll protect her.”

“No, Ben, no, bring two -!”

He’s cut the comm already.

“ _T-minus 45 seconds._ ”

“I love you,” Ben tells her. “I know we don’t really say it, but -.”

“Stop it,” she says harshly.

“ _T-minus 30 seconds.”_

“I’m sorry I didn’t come that day.”

“Ben, shut up! I’m getting you out of here!”

“ _Fifteen seconds.”_

“I love you, more than anything. You saved me.”

“ _Five seconds._ ”

Rey screams. The beam shifts. The _Falcon_ shoots. Transparisteel falls down around them.

Rey keeps the shield around them until they’re inside the _Falcon._

Then she closes her eyes and sleeps.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kylo Ren, as Supreme Leader of the First Order, you are hereby charged with crimes against the galaxy in violation of Galactic Law, which include but are not limited to: the authorization of a weapon of mass destruction, the destruction of the Hosnian System, kidnapping, high treason, murder of the first degree and in the highest order . . . .”
> 
> The list goes on. Ben doesn’t need to listen to know his crimes. He’s spent more than a year paying penance to himself and Rey, and now he’s home he will pay it also to his mother.
> 
> It’s only justice that the galaxy demands he pay it to them, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, the Ben & Leia feels in this chap get me every time I read it

Ben wakes five days after his coup above Coruscant. He’s in a med bay, but not one he recognizes. There’s no one else in the room. It must be the new Resistance base, he hopes, wherever they’d ended up after the attack on 5251977.

He’d gone through stages after the attack on the Resistance. He’d been so relieved, initially, that Rey was alive. He hadn’t realized until his fight with her that she might think he was behind it; he hadn’t realized at all that she still held on to reservations about him.

He’d been so afraid of the loneliness after she cut off the bond that he hadn’t even realized he was angry. But when Ben had thought it over, he knew he hadn’t done the wrong thing. He had stayed for a good reason.

Rey may never know how much he’d helped – stopped the Order mid attack, had forbade anyone from following after the _Falcon_ and shooting it down – but he knows. He knows he did the right thing, and it had been his first step towards redeeming _himself_ ; not relying on someone else to show him how to do it.

Still, the fury that coursed through him was white hot and burned in him for months. It was tempered only in those times in which he was consumed with self-loathing – of course she left. His own parents hadn’t wanted him, why would she be any different? Why had he thought he could be worthy of the love of someone has pure as her? – and little else brought him down from his rage.

But then. Then he thought: _Why do I need her to be there? I wanted that. I wanted to go back to the Light. I can do it myself._

Really, he’d made the choice, long ago, aboard the _Supremacy,_ when he’d chosen Rey’s life over Snoke’s. He’d never regretted that choice and now it will be his salvation.

The plan had grown without any encouragement. He’d built off the basic design he and Rey had formed, until he’d come to his master plan of killing High Command and ruining as many ships as a single person could do.

Turns out, it wasn’t as many as he’d hoped. He’d crippled only three Star Destroyers, the Resistance a fourth, but he has detailed knowledge of the remaining ships. There are at least sixty more Star Destroyers in the Order’s fleet; there are seven more Star Dreadnoughts, two of which are _Mandator IV-_ class Dreadnoughts; they have cruisers and frigates and starfighters.

Ben’s obliterated the remaining members of the High Command triumvirate, himself and Hux – Phasma having perished more than a year ago at the hands of FN-2187 (Finn, now, he supposes) – and he hopes that that’s enough for the Order to fall from the inside out.

He can’t think of anyone with the skills to pull off a complete overhaul of the Order’s power hierarchy, but it could be done, realistically.

The door to the med bay slides open.

Ben immediately goes to sit up, but he can’t; his wrists and ankles are tied down. There’s a Force suppression cuff on his neck (idly, he wonders both how the Resistance could afford one, and what they needed it for).

As if he has the strength to use the Force right now.

He doesn’t recognize the face of the person who walks in. He’s never seen them on any of his trips to Rey. The girl stumbles, then turns her back and walks out immediately.

FN-2187 – _Finn_ – comes in shortly thereafter.

They stare each other down warily. Ben decides he should be the one to break the silence.

“Rey,” he croaks. His throat aches from disuse; from his screams on _Harbinger._ “Is she okay?”

Finn obviously doesn’t want to trust him, but begrudgingly says, “Yes. She hasn’t woken up yet. We’re holding her in the main facility.”

Ben shifts in his cot, uncomfortable with the differentiation between where he is and where Rey is. “Then where am I?”

Finn sets his jaw and glares at him. “Away from the main facility, where you can’t hurt anyone.”

Ben’s eye twitches. Yeah, sure, probably a good precaution; but he hasn’t interacted with someone who doesn’t fear him or isn’t Rey in too long. Patience is not his forte.

“Did you see us change the course of a falling Star Destroyer or were you conveniently looking away at that point?” he spits, sarcasm dripping. “I can’t even _move,_ let alone kill anyone.”

Finn doesn’t look convinced on that point, but concern does leech through his features. Certainly not for him, Ben’s sure.

“Rey . . .” Finn clears his throat, shifting from foot to foot. “Will she be okay, after doing that?”

Yes, Ben hopes. She’d exerted herself far beyond her means, he knows, using the Force to stop the _Absolution_ from killing a billion people on Coruscant; and again when she’d lifted the beam from him and shielded them from both debris and space, sailing them safely to the _Falcon._ Both of those tasks individually should have been enough to kill her, kill them both. He doesn’t know why they’re alive.

He can only speculate and guess it was because they’d worked together; let power surge through each other and out.

There was something else, though.

He’d caught a glimpse of Rey when they’d been desperately trying to save Coruscant. Power had surged through her, light crackling from her fingertips. She’d mixed light and dark, created a balance, and he knew it had made her stronger. She accomplished something that she shouldn’t have been able to.

“I don’t know if she’ll be okay,” Ben admits to Finn. “I think so. When can I see her?”

Finn scowls at him. “You’ll be lucky to ever see her again.”

Ben narrows his eyes, clenching his fists. He takes a deep breath, tries to calm himself.

“What does _that_ mean?”

Finn walks further into the room.

“The Order has fallen. The Resistance has prevailed, and General Organa is heading the commission to reestablish the Republic.”

Finn eyes Ben particularly at that point, to see his response.

Ben should have known. Why would his mother suddenly break form and spend time with him now? He’d only done her fucking job and crippled the Order, what else could she possibly want from him?

“Kylo Ren, as Supreme Leader of the First Order, you are hereby charged with crimes against the galaxy in violation of Galactic Law, which include but are not limited to: the authorization of a weapon of mass destruction, the destruction of the Hosnian System, kidnapping, high treason, murder of the first degree and in the highest order . . . .”

The list goes on. Ben doesn’t need to listen to know his crimes. He’s spent more than a year paying penance to himself and Rey, and now he’s home he will pay it also to his mother.

It’s only justice that the galaxy demands he pay it to them, too.

The best he can hope for is exile to an empty world, maybe in the Unknown Regions. He will probably get life imprisonment. Maybe, if the jury that decides his fate is feeling vengeful – which he couldn’t blame – they will sentence him to capital punishment.

Maybe finally put him out of his fucking misery; but it would be for that reason that they didn’t kill him. Just to see him rot.

Ben’s tone is flat when Finn finishes.

“At least notify me when she wakes up.”

Finn glares, then turns on his heel and walks out. Ben hopes that’s a yes.

 

 

 

His mother visits him that night.

He can’t help the bitterness that creeps into his voice. “I thought you had to go off and reestablish the Republic.”

Leia is obviously unsure how to handle the situation. She leans her weight on her cane for a moment, then hobbles further in the room.

She’s gotten old since he saw her last.

She sits on the side of his bed, like she did when he was younger, and looks him in the eye as she puts her hand over his.

He turns his hand palm side up.

“ _Ben._ ” His name is a sweet sigh on her lips, regret mixed with an overwhelming relief.

They can’t fix their relationship, he knows. He wishes it were different, but there is too much hurt. They will never be able to overcome the pain they’ve inflicted on one another.

But right now, in this moment, he lets his mother hold his hand while he cries, trying to drown his sins.

 

* * *

 

It’s another ten days before Rey wakes up.

His mother comes when she can, usually once a day, and they mostly sit in silence. On the seventh day, she takes the suppression cuff off his neck, but they get into a huge row, trying to smooth their past slightly, and he breaks every transparisteel pane in the building with an uncontrollable Force outburst.

Leia’s made to put the cuff back on and he doesn’t see her again until the day Rey wakes up.

She comes into his room, and he’s already going slightly mad with his isolation.

“Back for another round?” he scoffs at her.

They’ve taken off the restraints from his ankles, but not his wrists.

“Rey’s awake,” Leia informs him, brusque and business-like.

He forgets the restrains and tries to sit up immediately. His legs swing over the edge, but the cuffs on his wrists make one arm twist painfully behind his back.

“Is she okay? Is she speaking? Don’t let her move yet, she’ll still be weak from -.”

Leia sits on his bed beside him, like she has been doing for more than a week. She eyes him calculatingly, as if she can see everything she wants to know about him.

It was a look that had scared him as a child, but that he looks upon fondly now. It’s just so _Leia._

“I loved your father the way you love Rey,” Leia says, slowly, like it’s the most important thing she’ll ever tell him. “Wholly. Intensely. Desperately.”

Regret makes his face turn down.

Leia cups her hand around his face. “No, my sweet Ben, I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty.” She slaps his face lightly. “Though you should. Lord knows you should pay for what you’ve done.”

He scowls. He doesn’t need that reminder right now, with Rey so close. “The point?”

“The _point_ is that we let other things get in the way of our love. We lost our path. We didn’t respect the power of what we had with one another, and we didn’t fear losing it. It blinded us, made us treat each other poorly. Don’t let that happen with Rey.”

Ben turns away from her, glares at the floor, angry at the implication that he would get to spend his life with Rey. It’s a gross reminder of his reality.

“Not that I’ll get to live to see that happen,” he mutters darkly, pulling at the restraints on the bed, making his shoulder twist painfully.

She tilts her head at him. “You think I’ve spent my whole life in politics, fighting war after war after war, and I don’t even have the sway to pardon my own son?”

His heart skips a beat, then a second, then stutters to life again.

“ _What?_ ”

She gets up from the bed, stands in front on him, and looks down at him meaningfully. “Ben Solo, in light of recent revelations, notably of your assistance in destroying the First Order, firstly by killing Supreme Leader Snoke and secondly by dismantling First Order High Command along with several ships, as well as in the evidence provided surrounding the circumstances of your initial defection, I, General Leia Organa of the Resistance, hereby offer you a formal pardon on behalf of the Republic.”

His head falls forward onto his mother’s shoulder, and, slowly, uncertainly, her hands come up to push back his hair like they used to, when he was a child and woke from a particularly bad nightmare.

“I don’t deserve that,” he whispers, his voice thick.

“You do to me.”

Her hands are light and gentle on his neck, vestiges of a past they both sorely miss.

“Remember what I said about love, alright?” she says, her chin resting on top of his head.

He’s aware they likely won’t show such vulnerability with each other again, and it only makes the moment more poignant.

“Yes, mother.”

 

 

 

Rey bursts into his room the next day, IV drip rolling behind her.

“What the fuck?” he mutters, sitting up.

His mother had removed both the restrains and the suppression cuff.

“Ben!”

Rey stumbles forward, then crawls up onto his bed, and wraps her limbs around him tightly, her legs locked around his waist and her arms around his neck.

His own arms snake around her back, and he buries his face in her shoulder.

“ _Rey._ ”

She presses kisses to the side of his face, then leans back just enough that she can press a sweet kiss to his lips. He opens his mouth immediately, hand weaving through the hair at the base of her skull, where the bond used to sit.

Rey sucks his bottom lip into her mouth, biting down lightly, and he groans in the back of his throat. She swallows the noise appreciatively, leaning her weight forward so he has no choice but to swing his legs up and lie down.

Someone clears their throat by the door.

“Rey, you _can’t_ just -.”

Rey breaks the kiss quickly. “Go away. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” She presses their lips together, moans sweetly. “Make that an hour.” He squeezes her ass. “Make that two!”

She flicks her wrist and the door slams shut and locks, then she kisses him hungrily again.

He turns his head with a laugh. “ _Two_ hours?” he teases, tucking a stray piece of hair from her face behind her ear. “As if you have that kind of stamina.”

“Afraid you can’t keep up, old man?” She grips his jaw with a strength he’s surprised she possesses right now.

He flips them over seamlessly, and Rey looks slightly dazed. He ducks down to kiss her again, rolling his hips into hers in the process. “You were saying?”

She swats his shoulder, rolling her eyes.

The mood sombers quickly.

“I’m so sorry,” she tells him quietly, cupping his face, her fingers running over his cheekbone. “I should never have thought that you would -.”

He presses their lips together, chastely, to shut her up.

“You’re right,” he agrees. “You shouldn’t have. But I’m sorry I led Hux right to it. I should have known better.”

She smiles sadly. “You’re right,” she echoes. “You should have.”

He’s never had the need to be able to decipher what she’s thinking from her face before, but he finds it isn’t hard. He knows her so deeply, it’s like her expressions are just an extension of what he already understands about her.

He changes his position slightly, settling better between her legs, crooking an elbow to hold himself up against the cot, the other resting over her stomach. She opens her legs wider, her knee bumping against his hip.

“I’ve been officially pardoned,” he says carefully, eyeing her to see her reaction.

She pushes some of his hair away from his face, tucking it back. He leans into her touch.

“I heard,” she replies softly. “How do you feel?”

As well as he knows her, he gets surprised at how well she knows him.

Anyone else would assume he’s ecstatic – it’s so much more than he ever thought he could receive – but she knows that he actually thinks they’ve made a mistake. He should be punished.

He murdered his own father, for kriff’s sake.

He doesn’t understand in what world stopping the Order can make up for that, but apparently it’s enough for his mother.

But he can’t say that, so instead he snarks, “Well, I’m glad we don’t have run away into a self-imposed exile, forced to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives in case our dark pasts were to ever reemerge.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Ben,” she says sternly.

He should have known better than to try and hide from Rey.

“I’ll endure.”

She presses their lips together lightly, the form of comfort she knows helps him most.

“I can’t forgive you everything,” she says earnestly, her hand cold against his cheek. “But what I can, I do.”

He lets his head fall, hiding his face from her searching gaze.

He wishes all he needed were her forgiveness. He wishes he didn’t desire for something deeper, for a bigger absolution from the galaxy. He was broken before he became Kylo Ren, and will be broken forevermore as Ben Solo, never able to wash the blood from his hands in anything other than more sin. For what else could this love with her be, for which he had burnt down the galaxy’s rule, other than sin?

He drowns in her, completely, but her forgiveness isn’t what he needs.

“It isn’t enough.” His voice is muffled by the pillow.

Her fingers tighten in his hair, at his neck, where the bond sat. Her touch there ignites tingles, leftover sensations from the bond and its intensity.

“It will be,” she tells him. “Eventually.”

 

 

 

Ben’s released a week before she is, but he doesn’t really want to be around the Resistance base without her, afraid of the stares and whispers. He can’t deal with that just yet.

So he spends the week mostly beside Rey, sitting in the most uncomfortable plastic chair he’s ever experienced.

It’s almost like they relearn each other, but not quite. The bond had been strong, too strong, but there were things that it couldn’t quite capture; the smell of her hair after she washed it, the calluses on her fingertips, the uneven sound of her steps, one leg stepping slightly lighter because of her accident on Jakku.

It’s beautiful in its simple complexity.

Most others shy away from them, either scared of him or disgusted with Rey, but that suits him fine. Eventually, he’ll have to learn how to reintegrate with society, but today isn’t that day. For now, he just wants to be with Rey.

A few of Rey’s friends come by to visit her, but they eye him awkwardly until they get fed up and leave.

He’d taken the hint and had the tact to make himself scarce the first time they came to visit, and he’d spent an hour sitting outside the medical wing on the ground, his back against the wall, staring up at Dantooine’s two moons. When he’d come back, Rey had been steaming mad, her friends long gone, and he had to spend another hour laying beside her for her to calm down enough to tell him what had happened.

He’d happened, of course. Her friends were worried about her relationship with him, worried that maybe he ‘wasn’t as good as he’s making himself out to be.’

She’d huffed and crossed her arms. “As if they know anything about you.”

“They won’t ever really understand,” he’d told her, kissing her cheek, settling down beside her in the bed now that she wasn’t as mad. He won’t ever admit to her that he has the same reservations about himself as her friends seem to. He thinks that Rey probably already knows.

“Rose tried,” she admitted. He thinks that’s the woman with the spiky hair. “But I think that’s just because she has some tact.”

After that, he didn’t leave when they came by. He’d caught Rey’s eye when they came next, inclined his head to the door, but she had grabbed his hand and pulled him on to the bed to sit beside her.

He’s always down to mess with some Resistance fighters, but he won’t interfere with Rey’s life outside of him, so he stays mostly quiet, trying to give them privacy, but not leaving her to deal with it herself.

The Resistance gets word that the Order is attempting to rebuild itself, but it isn’t working so well. Different factions have broken off, mostly taking to pirating different sectors. Ben knows they’re not to be underestimated, with their Dreadnoughts and Star Destroyers, but he’d told the Resistance everything he can, and what they do with that information now is up to them.

He may have come home, but he doesn’t want to fight anymore.

The day Rey is released, he walks through the Resistance base for the first time. People stare, but Rey glares back at them, and no one says anything to him.

They don’t need to say anything for him to know they think he should be dead.

Neither of them have any possessions. Ben has his lightsaber, Rey has her still-broken saber and her staff, and they have a couple changes of clothes each. Still, they make the room home.

That night he makes love to her, the moonlight shining on them through transparisteel. Her soft sighs and mewls are the only thing he needs to keep thinking this life is worth living.

Five weeks after he arrived on the base, Leia comes to visit he and Rey in their room, after most people have retired for the night.

“Neither of you have to stay,” she tells them, sitting at the desk. Ben and Rey sit on their bed, side by side. “You have no duty to see the rest of this war out. We’ve accomplished what we can militarily, and now it’s time for politics.”

They both frown at Leia, and she cracks a smile.

“Yes, I thought that wouldn’t appeal to either of you.”

No, Ben doesn’t want to stay here. He wants to go, explore the galaxy, see what it has to offer outside of death and destruction. But he’s aware he already has little time to make up for what he’s done to his mother, so he’s hesitant to leave her.

“Where would we go?” Rey asks slowly, like she’s trying to think through her excitement.

Leia shrugs. “I don’t know. You have a ship and an entire galaxy. You could go anywhere.”

Ben stays silent.

“If you wanted to stay in one place,” Leia says, like she’s about to offer something she thinks won’t be liked, “you could go to my home.”

“Alderaan?” Rey asks, tilting her head, her eyes wide in wonder.

Leia shakes her head slowly. “Chandrila.”

Ben flinches back harshly. Rey looks to him, alarmed at his volatile reaction.

“What’s on Chandrila?” she asks.

Ben stares at the floor. “It’s where I was born,” he tells her quietly.

“We have a house there,” Leia tells Rey. Ben already knows this. He grew up in it. “I haven’t been back in years. It probably needs a good clean out.”

No. No. He doesn’t want to go back there. He can’t face that just yet. He isn’t strong enough to go back to the house where he grew up, where his happy childhood memories remain untouched by a lifetime of hardness.

Rey puts her hand on his arm, squeezing in comfort. _We won’t do anything you don’t want_ , her eyes say.

 _We can go eventually_ , he sends back, _just not yet._

She must understand, because she smiles at him slightly, then turns back to Leia, who is eyeing them curiously.

“Is the bond still broken?” Leia asks.

“Yes,” Rey answers, like she doesn’t understand why Leia either cares or is asking.

Leia hums contemplatively, then looks at Ben. “Well, I just thought I’d let you know you’re not stuck here, if you don’t want to be.”

Rey looks between the two of them, then stands. “Um, I’ll just . . . There’s something I need to . . . you two have a talk . . . okay, bye.”

_Tactile._

Rey leaves the room, and Ben looks after her as she closes the door. She sends him a reassuring smile, then the door closes with a click.

“I don’t want to pressure you into anything,” Leia says, to break the tension. “I’ve never been good at letting other people make choices. I always make them for them, because I think I know best.”

It’s the best apology he’ll get from her about sending him off to Luke when he was younger, Ben knows.

“Anyway, I just . . . whatever you decide, I do hope that you might come see me sometimes.”

Ben is frightfully aware that his mother has no one else left. Just him. Just the son that took everything from her.

He doesn’t really know what to say. If he opens his big mouth, he’s pretty sure something hurtful will come out (“Why would I want to come back here?”, “We have nothing left to say to each other.”, “I’m too much of a coward to face you again.”) so he doesn’t say anything.

Leia sighs. “I’m getting frightfully old,” she prompts, leaning heavily on her cane, playing up the part of desolation. “I don’t know how much time I have left to see my only son.”

Ben’s lips twitch, though in a smile or frown he isn’t sure. Yes, he knows that too, no matter how much of a joke she’s making it out to be.

“The Base can get so lonely,” she continues slowly, her eyes wide as if she’s going to cry. He’s seen his mother cry only once before, after a particularly bad fight with his father. That was around the time Han started disappearing for longer and longer periods. “And I have no one to keep me company.”

That’s such a big fat lie. Even his own bloody girlfriend looked up to the woman as if she were a goddess.

But it does the trick, and he guesses that if she achieved her goal, she won’t care how she went about it. He sighs in irritation, crossing his arms, as if this is the biggest inconvenience in the galaxy.

“Yes, I’ll come visit you.”

She stands up, a smile blinding her face. “You sure about that?” She asks cheekily, flicking his forehead. He blinks in astonishment at the reproach. “You’ve never been particularly good at keeping promises.”

He scowls at her. “Don’t push your luck.”

She laughs, entirely too much happiness on her face. “My darling son, you don’t even know how lucky I can be.”

 

* * *

 

Rey and Ben leave three weeks later.

She’d told her friends the day after they’d decided that they were leaving.

“ _We_?” Poe spat.

“Yes, we,” Rey had replied, crossing her arms and turning her head up at him. “And, unfortunately for you, I don’t give a flying fuck what your opinion is on the matter, Dameron, so you should shut your mouth.”

He’d looked properly chastised.

There’d been some awkwardness, but ultimately they were happy she was finally getting out to see the galaxy.

The day they leave, Ben doesn’t join her to say goodbye to them. While she’d appreciated him staying with her when they all came by in the hospital, she’s equally appreciative now that he’s leaving her be with them.

Rey knocks quietly on Finn and Rose’s door. It swings open under her touch, and they’re waiting for her.

“You heading off?” Finn asks, standing up.

Rose looks to already have been crying for a few minutes. It makes Rey shift awkwardly. She’s not good at goodbyes.

“Yeah, we were.”

“We’ll come wave you off,” Finn says, and Rose cries more.

Leia is already there with Ben when the three arrive in the hangar bay, which is probably lucky, because he’s even worse with tears than she is.

“We’ll be back soon,” Rey tells them, in an effort to stop any more emotional exchanges. “Ben’s promised to come and see Leia once a month.”

“He doesn’t come home in ten years, now it’s once every month; he’s smothering her.”

Rey appreciates Finn’s attempt at a joke, even if it was awful, so she forces herself to laugh for a second.

“But it does mean I’ll see you guys then, too,” Rey says after a few seconds of awkwardness.

Rose can’t hold out any longer, it seems, because she engulfs Rey in her tiny arms.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Rose cries. Rose has always been much more forthright with her emotion than Rey.

“We’ll have a transceiver,” Rey says, hugging her back. “You can contact us any time.”

Rose nods, leaning back to wipe her nose. “I’d like that.” She casts a furtive glance over her shoulder, to where Ben is standing with Leia, then lowers her voice so Finn doesn’t hear. “I kind of like him. He’s a bit funny.” Rose chews her lip. “Does that make me a bad person?”

Rey lowers her voice also. “I kind of love him,” she tells Rose conspiratorially. “Does that make _me_ a bad person?”

Rose shakes her head furiously. Rey smiles at her, brings her in for another hug. For how touchy and emotional Rose is, Rey truly does love her, too.

“We’ll be back soon, okay?” Rey says as she pulls away, rubbing Rose’s arms in what she hopes is a comforting way.

“Soon,” Rose repeats around a watery smile.

Rose steps back to let Finn have a quiet moment with Rey.

“Be careful, alright?” Finn murmurs. His hugs have always brought warmth to her heart.

“Yeah, I know,” she says into his shoulder, arms wrapping tightly around his waist.

He clears his throat, to lighten to tension. “There a lot of planets out there, a lot of weird and dangerous animals, and we both know you’re terrible at looking out for yourself at the best of times.”

Rey chuckles. “Yeah.”

“At least you have someone to look out for you.”

It sounds oddly like approval.

“Finn, I -.”

“DID I MISS HER?”

Poe comes screeching in, BB-8 whirring behind him, and it interrupts what Rey was about to tell Finn.

She looks at Finn apologetically, then shouts over, “No, Poe, I’m right here.”

He sighs in relief, then rushes over to her, hooking his arms around her thighs to lift her up.

“Poe!” Rey gasps, slapping his shoulders. “Put me down!”

He laughs and obliges, peppering kisses over her face. She pushes his face away from her.

“You’re gonna make me get on the ship early,” she warns him, but can’t help but smile at him.

“I’m going to miss you,” he tells her. “You’ll miss me too, I know it. It’s not too late to run away with me instead, you know.”

Rey scoffs at him. “In your dreams.”

He winks at her. “You know it.”

Rey can’t help the blush that heats her cheeks. “Okay!” she says when he laughs at her. “That’s enough excitement for one day.”

She hitches the pack higher on her shoulders, then turns to Ben, who’s glaring at Poe.

She rolls her eyes at him, then goes over to join him with Leia, BB-8 whirring at her feet. Rey decides to ignore the hand Ben possessively puts on her lower back.

Leia pulls her in for a strong hug. “I’ll see you in a month.”

Rey smiles at the older woman whom she admires so much. “It’ll go faster than you think.”

When they finally get into the _Falcon,_ Ben settles in the copilot seat awkwardly, way too big for the cramped space.

Before she can sit down, he pulls her onto his lap, and in for a long, deep kiss.

“I’m not sure I ever told you, but I’m the jealous type,” he admits when they break apart.

She bites her lip to keep from laughing at him. “Ben,” she says reproachfully.

“I’m serious.” His gaze darkens, and leans forward again to suck her bottom lip into his mouth, biting down. “I don’t like other men touching you.”

“But other women would be fine?” she teases.

He glares at her. “No.”

She laughs, then stands up to sit in the pilot seat.

He pouts beside her as she fires up the _Falcon._

“Ben,” she says as the sublights power up.

He turns to her, still pouting.

“I love you.”

It’s the first time she’s said the words aloud. He can’t hold back a small smile.

“I love you, too.”

She grips his hand tightly. “Let’s go have some adventures, okay?”

“Together.”

“Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah wow, and here we are! I hope you enjoyed the final instalment! 
> 
> I already have some plans for some follow up stories, but if there's anything you want to see from our fave duo in this universe, hit me up! Or anything you want to see in general tbh, I'm defs open to ideas!


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